


Forbidden Attraction

by MarieCarro



Category: Twilight Series - Stephenie Meyer
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-01
Updated: 2017-11-14
Packaged: 2018-01-14 04:31:05
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 38,679
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1252957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MarieCarro/pseuds/MarieCarro
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To Edward Masen, Bella Swan was nothing more than his daughter’s best friend, but that all changed when they both applied for the same weekly writing course. Suddenly, she didn’t appear to be the young girl that had played with his daughter since her family moved in next door. What will Edward do when he realizes that he’s developing a very forbidden attraction for a woman twenty-five years his junior?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**A/N:** **I wrote one of the entries in the FictionPad Olderward/Olderella contest and this story came 2 nd in the Best Drama category!**

**Let’s see what you think of it :-)**

**Title:** **Forbidden Attraction**

 **Penname:** **MarieCarro**

 **Your Fictionpad Profile link:** **https://fictionpad.com/author/MarieCarro/bio**

 **Pairing:** **Edward/Bella**

 **Rating:** **M**

 **Word Count:** **10, 994 words**

 **Beta/Pre-reader:** **Mylissa**

 **Disclaimer:** The author does not own any publicly recognizable entities herein. No copyright infringement is intended.

 **Summary:** To Edward Masen, Bella Swan was nothing more than his daughter’s best friend, but that all changed when they both applied for the same weekly writing course. Suddenly, she didn’t appear to be the young girl that had played with his daughter since her family moved in next door. What will Edward do when he realizes that he’s developing a very forbidden attraction for a woman twenty-five years his junior?

~***~

I took a deep breath, filled my lungs with air and held it for a second before slowly exhaling and entering the building.

I couldn’t explain why I was so nervous. It was quite foolish actually. I had no reason to be nervous, and I kind of wanted to participate in the writing course held by Ms. Shelly Cope. I had applied for it after all, but I was hesitant as well. It wasn’t exactly something I usually did. Writing was something I did in my spare time, not something I had ever thought to develop.

None of my friends or family members had an interest in writing, so it wasn’t likely that anyone I knew would be there.

So, it would be somewhat of an understatement to say that I was surprised to see Isabella Swan standing there in front of the door, waiting for Ms. Cope with the others, while I made my way through the silent corridor of my daughter’s former school.

She was the last person I expected to be there. Very few knew about my passion for writing. I had never let anyone read what I wrote, not even Mary after twenty-three years of marriage. I had been afraid that she wouldn’t understand.

While Alice, our daughter, grew up, I had tried to spark the interest of books and reading in her, but I had only succeeded to an extent since she never initiated reading on her own. It was only when I asked her about the books I shared with her that she had something eloquent to say.

So that was why my surprise was genuine when I saw Alice’s best friend standing with the rest of the participants of the writing course. Isabella, or Bella as she’d told me to call her many years ago, had lived next door to my family for years.

I knew that she wrote poetry—I had asked to read her poems several times without success, but I had never considered that a course like this would appeal to her.

At the sound of my steps on the stone floor, she turned her head and her surprised, but happy, brown eyes met mine.

“Hi!” I greeted her with wide eyes full of the astonishment I felt inside.

“Hi, Mr. Masen,” she replied enthusiastically.

“Bella, how many times do I have to remind you to call me Edward? We’ve been neighbors for fourteen years, and you’re my daughter’s best friend. I believe it’s safe to say we’re on a first name basis now, don’t you think?”

Bella gave me a small smile, which made her eyes glitter, but instead of answering me, she changed the subject.

“I didn’t know you would be here. Alice never mentioned it.”

“That might be because she doesn’t know and neither does Mary.”

She raised her eyebrows in question, and I rubbed the back of my neck the way I always did whenever I felt nervous or embarrassed. The situation had definitely fit into the category of the latter.

I knew it sounded strange that I hadn’t told my wife or daughter about the course—it wasn’t exactly something someone would think to keep a secret—but I’d had my reasons, and I told Bella that.

“I wanted to try the class out first and see how it goes. I might not want to continue.”

“Why wouldn’t you want to continue? You applied for a reason, right?” she asked.

I shrugged my shoulders. “I’m not sure if what I have is possible to develop.”

Bella giggled. “I know what you mean. I never know if what I’ve written is good enough. What felt good yesterday, is total crap today. Tomorrow it might feel good again.”

I nodded, knowing exactly what she was talking about.

When a comfortable silence stretched between us, I noticed the notebook she had in her hand.

“Does this mean that I will finally be allowed to read what you write?” I asked with a small, teasing smile.

Bella blushed and, once again, changed the subject. “What is it that you write, anyway?”

I wasn’t a blusher, but even though my face did not get red, it was obvious that I was embarrassed when my hand went to my neck on its own accord. “Poems, I suppose. Mostly.”

It looked like she wanted to reply, but when she opened her mouth, nothing came out. I waited patiently, but before we could continue our conversation, the sound of heels on the stone floor clicked through the corridor.

A short, red-haired woman came forward with a huge smile on her face.

“Hello, everyone!” she called merrily. “I’m Shelly Cope, and I will be leading this course.”

My reaction to Ms. Cope was neutral, but I believe that was a normal reaction to a person I hadn’t met before, however, even though I could not say why I became aware of it, Bella’s reaction was something else entirely. She stared a bit and followed the slightly chubby woman with her eyes as if this was not how she imagined Ms. Shelly Cope, the author of Wreck, to look. She continued to stare while the woman opened the door to the old classroom and shook everyone’s hand as we entered and found our seats.

I was the last one in, and when I took Ms. Cope’s hand, I smiled. “It’s nice to finally meet you. Now I finally have a face to place with those poems I have at home,” I said.

She laughed with delight. “Oh my! It’s been an eternity since I published those. I certainly did not look like this when they were written. Unfortunately, time has placed its mark on me.”

“Hasn’t it on us all,” I joked with her, and she laughed again.

Once everyone was seated, Ms. Cope welcomed everyone again and said that in order for us all to feel more comfortable with each other, we would introduce ourselves and tell what our goal was with the course.

When three of the other participants, Robert Banner, Julia Hammond, and Deandre Varner, had introduced themselves, it was my turn. I stood up from my seat, and when everyone’s eyes turned my way, I felt the traces of my old stage fright creep up on me and my neck broke into a sweat.

“My name’s Edward Masen, and I work as a carpenter.” From the periphery of my vision, I saw Bella frown as if what I’d said was wrong. I turned my head her way, met her gaze, and smiled. “You look as if you want to protest,” I said, and she blushed a deep red before answering.

“Alice always says that you’re an engineer,” she said apologetically and shrugged.

I couldn’t stop the laugh that bubbled up inside of me. “She’s probably embarrassed that her dad spends his life repairing old furniture, but yes, I guess I’m an engineer. I have my own carpentry, Masen’s Carpentry as my younger, unimaginative mind named it when I started it.”

I was about to sit down again when Ms. Cope reminded me that I hadn’t told everyone about my goal.

I cleared my throat while thinking about it for a few seconds. Then I shrugged. “I barely know myself. Maybe to see what people think of my writing even though it’s nothing special. I guess I want this course to shed some light over the words that sometimes make no sense to even myself.”

Ms. Cope nodded, and I sat back down, relieved that I was no longer in the spotlight, even though the disagreement with Bella had taken my thoughts away from that matter.

After two more women in their mid-fifties had presented themselves, Rachel Black and Audrey Lowell, it was Bella’s turn. Her face was flaming red, and I noticed that her hands were shaking slightly as she stood up. I smiled to encourage her, but she wasn’t looking at me. Her eyes were completely focused on Ms. Cope.

“I’m Isabella Swan, and I work at The Five Roses as a receptionist. Before that, I went to high school here. I want to take this course to…to learn something.”

Two more women spoke, and then the introductions were over. Ms. Cope immediately began to tell us about the art of writing, its history, about runes, spells, and about how writing had grown through time into the literature we love today.

Eventually, she called for a break and, together, the group trekked down to the school’s cafeteria for a cup of watery coffee and sweaty cheese sandwiches. Since it was after school hours, all the “good” food was gone.

While I stood in line to pay for my sad excuse for an afternoon snack, I saw that while the rest of the group split into two groups, Bella sat alone at one of the round tables. She sipped on her coffee and peeled an orange that she had obviously taken with her from home since they did not sell them in the cafeteria.

She probably felt a bit like an outcast in the group since she was the only one there under the age of thirty. Hell, she wasn’t even twenty yet. Still, I had never had a problem talking to her when she came over to hang out with Alice. She was an insightful girl, smart, and only slightly immature, but who wasn’t at nineteen?

I was the only one there that she had any connection to at all, so I determinedly made my way over to her table even though Robert, or Bob as he said that everyone called him, had hinted that I should sit with him and some of the ladies. I didn’t want Bella to feel left out.

When I approached, she looked up and eyed the contents in my hand. “Wow, you spent a whole two dollars on that,” she said with a teasing smile.

I sat down and leaned back in my chair without touching the sandwich or coffee in front of me. I had not forgotten that I hadn’t received an answer to my question about reading her work before the course, and I was going to get that answer now.

“Well?” I asked with a smirk, and a confused expression came over her face.

“Well, what?”

“I’m still waiting to hear if I can read what you’ve written or not.” I nodded toward her worn notebook. It had doodles and drawings on it, so it was obviously a _very_ loved notebook. I had no doubt that her writings covered the pages from front to back.

I don’t know if she did it consciously, but she moved her hand from around her cup of coffee to the notebook, as if she was afraid I would take it without her permission if she left it unguarded.

I wiped the smirk off my face and leaned forward on my forearms. “Don’t look so scared,” I said. “I won’t read it if you don’t want me to. However, that doesn’t mean that I’m not curious. I have been ever since I found out that you write.”

She relaxed considerably, and I wondered what I could have done to make her think I would ever look through her personal things without her allowing it.

Then again, it might not have been anything I’d done, but rather the other way around. Bella hadn’t known me very well at that point after all.

Half an hour later, we were back in the classroom, and Ms. Cope told us what we were going to do during the next ten weeks. We were going to try a bit of everything, especially telling stories from different perspectives, writing about memories, poems, and lyric poetry.

She also told us that we would read everything out loud for the rest of the group and some complained by groaning. I didn’t like the idea, but I kept my opinion inside. I was going to participate in the course, and so I was going to do what I was told.

When it was over, everyone scattered off like cockroaches. I walked up to Bella who was lagging behind.

“Do you want a ride?” I asked. It was a freezing cold winter’s night, and I knew that Bella had always walked to and from school. I didn’t want her to freeze, and since we were neighbors and all, I thought I might as well drive her home.

The ride started out a bit awkward. Bella had her head turned completely away from me, and she was fidgeting with her hands, so to break the ice that I thought was already broken, I decided to talk about the course.

“So what did you think?”

She shrugged. “It’s a course like every other, I guess—nothing unexpected. Sometimes it felt like Ms. Cope read directly from an instruction manual on how to lead a course.”

I chuckled. Bella was truly Alice’s opposite, and maybe that was why they had been best friends for so long. Alice was a girly-girl with a rebellious streak that often appeared during her arguments with me and Mary, and had a tendency to walk around a subject. Bella was a straight-forward girl that always followed the rules.

Her father, Charlie Swan, had often bragged about Bella’s excellence in school over the hedge that separated his lawn from mine, and he never hesitated to make it obvious that his Bella never acted out by coloring her hair blue—something Alice had done in their sophomore year—or walked around in too-tight outfits.

Though our wives, Renée Swan and Mary Masen, got along just fine and were often found gossiping during hot summer days with iced tea in their hands, Charlie and I never hit it off. We played the part of good neighbors by lending each other our tools, but I quite despised Charlie since he always tried to out-best me in everything. He just couldn’t stand the thought that I made more money than him and could provide my family with a luxury every now and then.

The wheels underneath my car squealed when I turned into my driveway and killed the engine.

“I…” Bella opened her mouth to say more, but closed it and turned away.

I looked at her and waited. “What?”

She cleared her throat and shrugged. “I read a book that Alice borrowed from you—a book by Allison Polly.”

“Delirious?” I asked, and a thought poked at my mind.

She nodded. “It was…I liked it. I actually read it twice.”

It confirmed the suspicion that was now in full bloom in my head. I should’ve known that Alice never actually read the books I gave her. The reviews she gave them didn’t ever sound like words she would use, but I guess I’d been naïve enough to believe that I had something in common with my daughter.

“Aha,” I said.

“What do you mean with that?” Bella asked. It looked like she feared that I’d figured out their secret.

“I knew she couldn’t have come up with that by herself.”

“Come up with what?”

“A penetrating flow of words, like a magic spell that not even life could resist.” I quoted my daughter, and watched with an amused smile as Bella’s eyes widened.

“W-we d-discussed the book,” she said in an attempt to cover for Alice.

“So it was you,” I stated. It was so blaringly obvious now. I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t figured it out before.

“We discussed the book,” she said again stubbornly. “I just wanted you to know that I liked it, too. I’d never heard of her before…Allison Polly, I mean.”

“I have more of her books if you want to borrow them. We don’t have to go through Alice this time.”

She blushed, but nodded and said that she would love to borrow them.

After that we said good-bye, and she got out of my car.

I don’t know why I did it, but I stayed in my car and watched her until she disappeared inside her house. It was only then that I got out myself.

Everything was just as usual inside my house.

Alice was inside her room, playing some god-awful music on the highest volume, causing the walls to vibrate. I felt the urge to walk upstairs, knock on her door, and ask her to turn it down, but I knew that would only start up a fight I did not have in me right now.

Mary was on the phone, her left leg, which was crossed over her right, was bopping up and down in time with the music Alice was playing, whether it was an unconscious movement or not, I couldn’t tell.

She smiled when she saw me—it wasn’t unusual that I stayed late at the carpentry, so my absence that evening wasn’t something she questioned—and I walked up to her and gave her a kiss. She hummed to whatever the person on the phone said and mouthed to me that there was dinner in the oven for me if I wanted it.

I gave her another kiss to show my appreciation and made my way to the kitchen.

I saw a dish covered in aluminum, lit up by the lamp in the oven, and I raised the temperature to heat it up some more without checking what it was. I was too hungry to care. Mary always cooked delicious food anyway, so I would be happy with whatever.

Soon, the smell of spices and cheese filled the kitchen, and when I took the dish out of the oven and revealed my wife’s lasagna, I almost had to wipe drool of my chin when my mouth began to water; it was that good.

After I’d enjoyed half of it, the blaring music was turned off, and Alice came down the stairs. When she entered the kitchen, I almost choked on the food I had in my mouth, and I had to clunk down an entire glass of water to clear my throat before speaking to my daughter.

“What the hell have you done with your hair?” I spluttered out without really thinking about what kind of damage my words would do, but Alice’s hair had shocked me.

Gone was the shoulder-length, dark brown hair and in its place was a black spikey hairdo that was shorter than my own. I thought she was done with the extreme hairdos after the blue hair ordeal

Alice knew exactly what I thought of her hair—I completely hated it—and it was obvious that she didn’t care. “Mom cut and colored it at the salon today. Don’t you like it, Daddy?”

When she called me daddy, I instantly knew it was an act to rile me up. She never called me daddy otherwise, so instead of giving her what she wanted, I took a deep breath and smiled. “Yes, I do. It looks good on you.”

The defiant glint in her eyes disappeared, and she left the kitchen with a huff. I groaned and buried my hands in my hair. I knew Alice was just acting out, but for the life of me, I couldn’t figure out why. She refused to tell me or Mary.

Mary had repeatedly tried to assure me that it was only a phase Alice was going through.

The only thing we could do was encourage her in whatever she did, and she would snap out of it eventually. I prayed that she was right and that it would end soon.

~***~

The next Thursday, I arrived at the old high school, carrying two books written by Allison Polly that I thought Bella might like.

When I handed them to her, she eyed them for a few seconds before she held them against her chest. “Thank you,” she said with a sweet smile.

“No problem. These were the next books I hoped to get Alice to read, but…” I let the rest of the sentence trail out in the sand.

“She does read some of the books you give her,” Bella said, defending her friend. “It’s just that some of them—”

“I know.” I held up one of my hands to stop her. “I’ve always tried to force things on her that I hoped she would like. It’s a weakness of mine, I guess.”

We continued to converse until Ms. Cope came clicking down the corridor. She asked us all how the homework had gone and smiled when some of the others enthusiastically replied.

We were supposed to take a memory and reiterate it by writing a poem about it. It had not worked for me at all. I was pretty sure that my poem would be one of the worst, but I couldn’t do anything but endure the torture and read it out loud.

Bella walked next to me inside the classroom, and her grimace told me that it hadn’t gone well for her, either. Still, what she read out loud about a particular memory she had with Alice, I had to say that it was better than most. She truly had a talent.

During the break, Julia and Audrey joined Bella and me at our table. They immediately started up a conversation with me while completely ignoring Bella. To be polite, I continued talking with them, but in my periphery I saw Bella cross her arms over her chest and stare at the two women. It looked almost as if she thought they had interrupted our time together.

It wasn’t until we got in my car after the course that I got a chance to ask her about it.

“It was rude of them to sit with us and not talk to me. It was like I didn’t exist. They only had eyes for you.”

I may have heard it wrong, but it almost sounded like Bella was jealous, although what she had to be jealous about, I didn’t know. But the feeling it evoked in me, although pleasant, was anything but good. I should not have felt pleased about something like that.

“What did you think about my poem?” Bella asked, interrupting my thoughts.

“It was very well written,” I replied, thankful for the distraction. “And so much better than mine.”

“No way! Yours was great, but we got a boring subject. This next one seems more interesting.”

I nodded. “I agree, but I also have a hard time writing on command. Maybe I’ll get used to it.”

“Have you told Alice that we go to the same writing course?” she asked, suddenly changing the subject. “She wants to know how last week was, but I’m afraid to tell her that you were there. She might get mad if she hears that you’ve been there this whole time, and I didn’t tell her.”

I laughed at the simplicity of the problem Bella had, but knowing my daughter, she could refuse to speak to Bella for weeks if she found out about the fact that her best friend attended the same course as her dad without telling her about it.

“What a situation I’ve put you in! I’ll tell her tonight, I promise.”

“Thank you,” she said appreciatively.

For almost an hour, we remained in the parked car and just talked. Mostly about the course, but also about personal stuff, books we had enjoyed, and the people we attended the course with.

Bella seemed to enjoy my way of observing the people around me—how I could somehow see their core by simply hearing them talk for five minutes.

I also got to know Bella on a new level. She was still all of the things I already knew, but I found out that she was also curious and thirsted for knowledge. She had never had the desire to go to the parties Alice had always gushed about through high school, even though she’d gone to some of them just to please my daughter.

She was no longer simply Alice’s friend in my eyes. During that hour, she grew into something more. She became my friend—a person I could share my passion with.

In the following weeks, our friendship grew stronger, but only when we were alone. When she was with her family or Alice, she reverted back into being Alice’s best friend only, but I got to see her being animated over a movie or book she’d recently read on those Thursday evenings we spent together.

I took an immense liking to Bella Swan, and I found myself yearning for her company more than once. On those occasions, I always reminded myself of the fact that she was only a nineteen-year-old girl, especially when my thoughts drifted to her during conversations with my wife.

I sometimes felt incredibly ashamed of what I was thinking, but I couldn’t seem to help it. My want for her company was soon not only on a mental level, but a physical as well, and it scared me to my core.

~***~

One Saturday afternoon in March when Bella was hanging with Alice in her room, I fought the urge to knock on the door and ask to talk with Bella for a few minutes. Alice knew that we were going to the same course by now, so she wouldn’t think it was weird if I said that I needed her friend’s opinion on something.

The reason that I was fighting it was because I didn’t really need Bella’s opinion. I only wanted to talk to her. I wanted to see if I could make the Bella I liked come forward even though she was hanging out with Alice at the moment. I needed her to come out, because I needed to know if she felt the same way I did.

At the same time, I didn’t want to know, because what would I do if she did?

I lost the battle, though, and I found myself standing outside of my daughter’s room with a few pieces of paper in one hand and my other knocking on the door.

I peeked inside, and when Bella smiled, I knew that she didn’t mind me interrupting her time with Alice. “Bella, since you’re already here—”

“Dad…!” Alice sighed deeply and rolled her eyes at me.

“I am terribly sorry for the interruption, oh great daughter of mine,” I said teasingly, and Bella giggled. “But if I can borrow Bella for two minutes, I promise that I won’t utter another word for the rest of your eve together.”

Alice rolled her eyes again. “You are so lame, Dad,” she snorted out. “Besides, you can talk as much as you want tonight, because we’re going to the movies,” she stated.

Bella, who was walking toward me, stopped in her tracks. “We are?”

“Of course!”

I felt an ache in my stomach when Bella followed me out into the hallway. It was an ache I hadn’t felt in fifteen years at least, and the thought had me rubbing my slightly sweaty neck.

I handed one of the papers to Bella. “Do you think this is good enough?”

Bella’s eyes widened, and then a big grin stretched across her face. She accepted the paper and began to read. While doing so, her mouth formed the words quietly, and I found myself focusing on it, almost losing myself in the process.

I swallowed thickly when she looked up and tried not to let my face reveal my inner thoughts. How I could even have those thoughts about a nineteen-year-old girl in the first place was beyond me. For a second, I actually felt disgusted with myself.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “Although…”

“Although what?” I asked, genuinely interested now in what she thought about the poem.

“It feels like you’re saying the same thing twice in the end.”

I stepped closer to her and read what I’d written. During those few seconds, the smell of her shampoo invaded my nose, and I held back a groan.

Even though I couldn’t concentrate on my own text, and I had no idea what she meant about the ending, I agreed with her. We smiled, and for a moment, we didn’t say anything. We only looked at each other.

Alice chose that moment to stick her head out from her room and state impatiently that they had to leave soon.

Snapping out of the trance that had been created in my mind, I took the poem back from Bella. “I’ll re-write this,” I said as I backed away from her and toward the office. “Thank you for the help.”

I turned around, but before I closed the door, I wished them a fun time at the movies. I heard Alice mutter a ‘whatever’ before the door closed behind me, and I exhaled with relief.

What the hell was going on with me?

~***~

I practically stood on the brakes as I parked my car outside of the school.

I was almost twenty minutes late, but I was held up by a customer with very specific requirements for an old coffee table he wanted me to work on.

With fast and shallow breaths high in my throat, I made my way with long steps through the corridor toward the classroom where the others were probably already sitting down.

It was so typical that I would be late tonight since it was the last week of the course. It was the night that we would read our own personal poems that we had written without any directions or instructions from Ms. Cope.

I knocked on the door before opening it, and everyone turned their heads to look at me, but it was Bella’s gaze that I noticed the most. Her eyes were slightly watery, as if she had been about to cry, but the brown depths also showed relief over my presence. My heart made a strange double beat at the same time as Bella’s cheeks reddened.

“I’m sorry I’m late,” I said and forced my eyes away from Bella to Ms. Cope. “But I was held up at work.”

Ms. Cope smiled at me reassuringly. “Don’t worry. We’ve barely started.”

After some shuffling, I sat down in my seat with my poems in front of me and waited for my turn. I was nervous to read them out loud, not because the group would hear them, but because Bella would. She was probably the only one that would really know what they were about.

When Bella stood up to read her poems, I leaned forward so that I wouldn’t miss a single word. She stood with her legs slightly apart, and her eyes lowered toward the paper in her hand. I could see that she was nervous, but as soon as the words started to flow from her mouth, I forgot all about that.

The depth and insight in her words, as well as the youth apparent in the text, mesmerized me. She read about a confused young woman like herself that didn’t know which path to take as she made her way toward adulthood.

To someone that didn’t know the art of poetry, the poem would have sounded like gibberish, but I knew that Bella had been talking about herself.

When she finished, I wasn’t the only one that was spellbound. Almost everyone in the room sat with their mouths slightly open in shock. No one had known that a talent like Bella’s was residing inside that young body of hers.

Eventually, it was my turn, and I started to nervously go through the pages of my notebook. I mumbled to myself that I didn’t know if they were good enough but that I’d read them anyway.

As I read, I took comfort in the fact that nobody in there, apart from Bella, knew about the admissions I made in that moment, admissions about how my relationship with my daughter tore at my heart and how I wished it could be better. I admitted that my life felt like a big fat routine: squared and boring.

I also told about my marriage. Even though it was a loving one, it was seriously lacking. I barely had anything in common with my wife, and our love-making was just like my life: squared and boring.

Passion hadn’t existed between us since Alice was two.

I practically laid out my entire life for the small group of people that I’d only known for ten weeks, and I made myself especially vulnerable with the last poem that was solely about the intimate times between Mary and me, although it was reworded to make it seem like any pair of lovers that had lost something on their journey together.

Maybe it was a bit too erotic, but I hadn’t been able to put it in any other way.

I automatically looked toward Bella’s form when I was done, but she wasn’t looking at me. She was stubbornly staring at the folder in front of her, but I wanted her to look at me. I needed to know what she thought of the poems since she knew my family, and now she knew of the depth of our problems.

My focus was only on her, even when Julia wondered why I didn’t write so that it would be easier to understand the poems. I didn’t reply to that, but Ms. Cope took the opinion in and seemed to agree.

“I do believe that you would gain more by simplifying your writing. Try to pinpoint what you want to be said with every poem, but other than that, it was different and fun.”

Bella’s head snapped up, and she stared at Ms. Cope as if she’d grown another head. In that moment, I knew that she’d understood every word, and now she was questioning Ms. Cope’s sanity.

I didn’t care that the others hadn’t liked my poems. What was important to me was that I had finally relieved my heart from some of the heavy stuff that resided in there. I had been carrying it around for too long.

For the remainder of the class, I sat quietly in my seat, but when I felt a tingling on the side of my face, I turned to see Bella staring at me with brown eyes full of question.

I already knew what she was wondering, and I planned to talk to her after, hopefully in the car ride home.

However, when she quickly looked away from me, as if she suddenly realized she was staring, I frowned. There was something in the way she held herself that was off.

Ms. Cope called for a break, and I waited for Bella to stand up from her seat so that we could go to the cafeteria together.

“Ms. Cope?” Bella called to gain the older woman’s attention.

“Yes, Isabella?”

“I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can stay. I don’t feel well, and I think I need to go home and rest.” This statement shocked me and I frowned. She seemed fine only moments before, so what caused her to suddenly feel unwell?

“I’m sad to hear that, dear, but if you don’t feel well go home and rest. I will email your evaluation to you.”

“Thank you,” Bella mumbled quietly in response.

When she walked past me, I tried to ask her if she was okay, but she refused to look at me.

I watched her walk down the corridor, and I felt a strange pain in my chest.

~***~

I read the words that Bella had written me again and then folded the letter so that I could tuck it back into its envelope.

Every word confirmed that she knew exactly what my poems had been about, but she needed some time to let them sink in and “build up a few walls again” as she’d put it in the letter.

I should have known what those poems would do to her. It couldn’t have been easy for her to hear how life was for her best friend’s father, a figure girls her age often barely thought about. That figure was supposed to remain in the background, in the shadows. You weren’t supposed to know about that person’s intimate fears and desires, but now she did, and she needed time.

I could understand that.

But at the same time, she had reached out her hand through the letter, telling me that if I ever needed to talk, she was there to listen. That wasn’t a responsibility a forty-four-year-old man should put on a young girl’s shoulders, but she was the only one that had ever offered me this, and so I couldn’t resist it: the offer.

I reached for the phone and dialed the number to Bella’s workplace. I just had to talk to her.

“The Five Roses Hotel, this is Isabella speaking. How can I help you?” I heard her say, and I took a deep breath before revealing that it was me.

“Hi, it’s Edward,” I said and waited for her to reply.

It took a few seconds, but then I heard a timid “Hi” in my ear.

“Thank you for the letter.”

“I…I don’t know if it’s anything to thank me for,” she mumbled, and I could almost see her in front of me: her blush and how she nervously pulled her hair behind her ear.

“Of course it is,” I argued. “It was really sweet of you, and I was so happy when I got it. I’ve read it at least ten times.”

“Good…I was a little…I mean, I thought that Mary might read your mail, and…”

It was quiet between us as I pondered what she had said. She had obviously thought a lot about her letter after she’d posted it. She had thought that if Mary got her hands on the letter, and if she read it, it would drive a wedge between us, so that meant that the meaning behind the letter was deeper than I first thought.

I read it again and tried to see it through a teenage girl’s eyes, and I knew, I just knew that she was trying to tell me something of importance, but I couldn’t see what it was.

She couldn’t possibly feel what I felt for her. What I felt for her was wrong on all levels, and I wouldn’t act on it, no matter how much my body wanted to.

Eventually, I said lowly into the phone that Mary didn’t ever read my mail.

There was silence again until Bella did her thing and changed the subject. “I don’t think Ms. Cope really understood your poems.”

I smiled. This was something we could talk about freely, and I was happy to hear that Bella and I could possibly remain friends even though the course was over. “No…they weren’t that good, I guess.”

“I thought so,” Bella replied fiercely. It warmed my heart to hear.

“Your poems on the other hand, they were beautiful! Would you mind if I borrowed them to take a closer look? I need to see if they’re as good as they sounded when you read them or if it was only because you read them so well.”

“I-I’ll print out another round.”

We continued to chat for a few minutes before hanging up.

I looked at the letter on my desk again and then picked it up to read it one more time while my heart was beating fast inside my chest.

~***~

The next letter I received from Bella wasn’t only the poems, but also a longer letter than the first. I couldn’t keep count on how many times I’d read it, but it was for a different reason than the first time.

Nothing had gone as I’d planned. Not that I had planned anything, but everything was slowly growing into a bigger mess than I had anticipated.

In the letter, Bella practically confessed to having romantic feelings for me, and that was not something I could handle at the moment. I’d felt that way for her for weeks, but I had promised myself that nothing would ever happen. I would let the juvenile crush pass and continue on with my life. I didn’t want to deal with Bella reciprocating my feelings. It made the entire situation so much more complicated.

I was married with a daughter for heaven’s sake, a daughter that was three months _older_ than the girl that had starred in my dreams several times. It couldn’t be more messed up than it already was.

I felt like I didn’t have a choice, so instead of calling Bella and telling her that this couldn’t go on any longer, I didn’t do anything.

I ignored it like the coward I was, but I did keep the letter in the bottom drawer of my desk in the carpentry.

~***~

A week after I got the letter, Mary invited the Swan’s over for lunch since the sun had finally decided to show.

She put out plates for six people, but when they arrived, it was obvious that only five would be used, because Bella was not with them.

I was the only one that really knew why.

~***~

Another two days passed and then a third letter arrived. The tone was different in that one: crushed and defeated.

She asked me to forget what she’d written before, that even though every word was true, they were obviously not supposed to be shared. She would lock her feelings inside and hope that we could at least remain friends.

What jumped out at me the most was her compliment on my looks in the end. She said that it would be almost unbearable to look at my handsome face without an aching heart, but if it meant that we could be friends, she would take it.

It was incredibly flattering to have such a young woman yearn after me in that way. I knew that we had to talk; so once again, I dialed the number to The Five Roses and waited for Bella to pick up.

“The Five Roses Hotel, this is Isabella speaking. How can I help you?”

“Hi,” was all I said, but by Bella’s sharp intake of breath, I knew that she heard that it was me.

“Yes, of course, sir! We’re located not far from the city. Would you be interested in booking a room?” she said cheerily, and I understood that I’d caught her at a bad time.

“You’re not alone, are you?”

“No…”

“Bella, I…” I didn’t know how to continue. How did you talk about something like this? Did things like this really happen in real life? Was I seriously finding myself in a situation like this? “We need to talk in person,” I eventually pressed out. “I’m not indifferent on this.”

She didn’t reply to that, and after several seconds, I had to check if she was still there.

“Yes,” she croaked out.

“Can you come by the carpentry at lunch tomorrow? We need to talk about this one way or the other.”

“Okay.”

“Okay, good. I’ll see you then,” I said, ending the conversation awkwardly.

“Yes.”

“Goodbye.”

“Bye.”

We hung up the phone, and I rubbed my hands over my face in frustration as I tried to figure out how to solve this.

~***~

As the clock closed in on lunchtime, I felt my nerves settle in my stomach, almost making me nauseous.

What was I thinking inviting Bella here? We would be completely alone, and I already had a hard time controlling myself when she was close by and there were other people around.

But it needed to be done. We had to talk about it, whatever it was that was happening between us, and end it. We couldn’t pursue anything because it was wrong.

She was more than half of my age; she was Alice’s best friend and our neighbor’s daughter. I had seen her grow up from the age of five. I had been married since before she was born. And I was _still_ married.

My time to think was up, though, because I heard the entrance door open out in the shop, and I took a deep breath to calm myself before exiting the office. It was now or never.

I had barely laid my eyes on Bella before I felt the need to curse out loud.

She was dressed in a tight, black mini-skirt, and it looked like she was wearing one of those push-up bras that I’d seen Alice wear occasionally. She had also put on some makeup. In other words, she did not look dressed to talk, but to seduce, and I swallowed thickly.

All of this went through my mind in only a few seconds, and when Bella met my eyes with her brown ones, I knew that no matter what I tried to tell myself, I wouldn’t be able to end it.

Bella had become a huge weakness of mine.

In order to hide my thoughts from her, I cleared my throat. “I was just wondering…,” I started, but did not continue.

“What?” she asked weakly. It was obvious that she was just as nervous as I was, if not even more.

“If you were going to show up at all.”

She shrugged. “Of course! I would never ignore you,” she said, and it felt like she was hinting to me that she would never treat me the way I had treated her. I felt like an ass. I was supposed to be the adult here, but it was me that acted like the immature teenager.

“Come on in. We can sit in here and talk.” I gestured toward my office, and Bella walked inside with a straight back and sat down in the chair opposite of mine across the desk.

I watched her look around the office before her eyes settled on me. “I don’t understand any of this,” she said genuinely, and I understood that her feelings for me confused her. She had never expected to feel this way for me, her best friend’s father.

I smiled slightly since I could see how innocent she truly was. She was so young and already in a deep mess that she had no idea how to handle. Not that age mattered there since I didn’t know how to handle it, either.

“My feelings aren’t exactly new,” I admitted, and she blushed adorably. “But I have to confess that I was quite surprised and shocked to hear that they are reciprocated.”

Her blush deepened and she looked down at her hands. She looked so vulnerable, and I just couldn’t keep my distance any longer, so I took a step closer to her and placed my hand gently on her arm in hopes of comforting her.

“What do you want with this?” I asked.

“I…I don’t know,” she said, and it sounded like the truth. She still kept her eyes on her hands. In order to make her more comfortable, I stepped away from her and turned toward the coffee maker to pour us two cups of coffee.

I thought of the letters that she’d sent me, how she’d put herself out there and admitted her feelings before I did, and I sighed lightly before turning back around. Bella was now looking at me, probably a reaction to my sigh.

“You know what I told you about reading your letter at least ten times?” I asked and she nodded. “Ten times,” I snorted. “I had accomplished that before lunch.” I cast a glance at her to gauge her reaction to that.

She seemed to almost grow in front of me. Suddenly, she sat up straighter in her chair, and she wasn’t avoiding my eyes any longer. She squared her shoulders and waited for me to continue.

I shook my head incredulously. “I thought I had left all this craziness behind me decades ago, and then you show up.”

“I’ve been here the entire time,” she said with a steady but low voice.

I sighed again. “Which makes it even worse.”

I handed her one of the cups of coffee, and when her hand enveloped around the steaming mug, the tips of her fingers grazed my knuckles. The feeling was like being electrocuted, and my heart started to drum violently in my chest. My neck broke out into a sweat, but I refrained from rubbing my hand over it.

“What do _you_ want?” she asked after a moment of silence, and my head snapped up to meet her now completely steady gaze.

“I don’t know, either.” That was a complete lie. I knew exactly what I wanted, but if she knew even a small portion of it, she would turn her back to me and run as fast as she could because my desires were just sick. Still, I couldn’t lie straight to her face, so I corrected myself. “Well, I do know, but…” I let it trail off and allowed her to interpret it however she wanted.

She stood up gingerly from her chair and walked up to me so that we were face to face. Bella had to bend her head backwards to accomplish that, though, since I was at least a head taller than her. I could feel her body heat through my clothes, and when she got close enough, I felt her warm breath waft over my face.

It caused every single rational thought in my head to fly out the window, and I put down my coffee before I started to move my hands up and down her arms, an action that caused goose bumps to break out on her skin. Then I let them travel up over her shoulders and her neck to eventually settle on her, now red, cheeks.

In slow motion, I bent down and touched her lips with my own, and the second they met, every nerve ending in my body started sparking like electric wires that had come in contact with water.

Everything inside me was ablaze, and it all came from the one focal point of our mouths pressed together.

The taste on my tongue and the smell of her skin made my head swim with lust and desire, and I enveloped her with my arms.

“Bella…!” I moaned, and her hands started to discover my body in a manner that felt too good. I instantly woke up from the spell that had been placed on me. I pulled away from the kiss and released her from my hold before taking a step back.

My thoughts screamed that I was completely insane. What _the fuck_ was I doing? She was Alice’s best friend! Charlie Swan’s daughter!

I ran my hands through my hair repeatedly and down my face while pacing back and forth in the small space that was my office, but nothing could erase the memory of the passion that the simple kiss had awoken inside me.

I cast a glance in Bella’s direction and saw her looking slightly dazed, her breathing labored, and her lips slightly parted.

I stopped pacing. “Are you all right?” I asked, concerned about what the kiss would mean to her.

Bella nodded in reply to my question, but for once I doubted if she told me the truth. I turned my body so I was fully facing her, but I made sure to keep my distance now. “I meant what I said before, Bella. We need to _talk_ about this! I never imagined something like this would…or well, of course I’ve imagined it, fantasized about it. That was unavoidable after your letters, but I didn’t plan for it to really...” I stopped my own word vomit, took a deep breath and looked her right in the eye to make sure that she understood every word of what was about to be uttered from my mouth. “Bella, I don’t think you have any idea how flattering it is for a man when a woman over twenty years younger shows interest. Honestly, I don’t understand how or why you feel this way. I really don’t.”

My little speech caused her to blink in shock, almost as if she hadn’t thought of it that way, and maybe she hadn’t, but that didn’t really matter.

I started to pace again, but I could feel Bella’s eyes on me the entire time. “I need to clear my head and think rationally about this,” I said. “Because right now, my body is telling me to uproot my entire life and run away with you.” I could instantly see what my words did to Bella. She obviously had not imagined that I could be so drastic and dramatic, but there was something in the girl that brought it all out of me.

“Y-you’re out of your mind,” she stuttered. “You would regret it terribly, and just think of Alice and…” she said as if I had actually considered the thought for real. Well, I guess I had for just a short second, but I would never be able to really go through with it.

We looked at each other for a few seconds, and her mouth hypnotized me. I couldn’t stop myself from minimizing the space between us and stealing another kiss. This one was less passionate with closed lips, but it still set my entire being on fire.

I pulled away again, but she remained in my arms this time. “I think it’s best if you go now,” I whispered to her, and she nodded before leaving me alone in my office.

~***~

Later that night when I was home, I sat in the living room and pretended to watch the evening news while thinking everything through just like I told Bella I would.

It was so much easier to think rationally when I was away from her. She was so intoxicating that it bordered on ridiculous. The whole adventure in the carpentry had proved that.

I had still been in a daze when I first got home. During the first part of the evening, I had truly considered pursuing a relationship with my young neighbor. My head had swum with images of her and me together, and how good I was positive it would be.

When I kissed her, it had felt as if the delicate creature in my arms had been made for me. The only thing that had actually stopped me from ravaging her on top of my desk was the immoral part of the situation. I barely cared about the age difference anymore; it was the least of my problems.

My main problem was that I wanted to be with her with my entire heart, but if I were to give in to that longing, I would commit a crime, and not just against my wife, but against my daughter. Adultery was frowned upon on its own. Add to that, acting out adultery with someone who’d just barely reached legal age.

Technically, I had already committed a crime by lusting after Bella, but as long as I hadn’t acted on my feelings, everything had been fine. Now I had acted on it, though. We had shared kisses, secret and forbidden kisses that were full of passion, passion that had been non-existent in my marriage for over seventeen years.

But it wasn’t just that. I shared something with Bella that I hadn’t with anybody else before: an interest, a hobby of sorts. We had so much in common, and before this entire ordeal, we’d had no problem talking with each other for hours.

There was a reason that Bella and I happened to be in the same writing course. Fate wanted us to meet and get to know each other on a deeper level, become friends, but I don’t believe that fate had taken this attraction into the equation. I refused to believe that Bella was meant to become my mistress, no matter how much I secretly wanted it. She was too good, too innocent for that.

And I wasn’t really prepared to do what I had told Bella I’d wanted in my office. I couldn’t leave my wife and daughter, hell, my life, behind all because of how this teenage girl made me feel. I couldn’t imagine abandoning what I had built up, my company, my family, and the normalcy of my existence, for the chance of a physically, and probably mentally, satisfying relationship. I had no guarantee that it would last, though.

I couldn’t destroy my family for a shameful impulse. Bella deserves better and so does my family.

I had to forget about her, and she had to forget about me. In the end, even a friendship would be unlikely. It would be too tempting to be that close to each other.

So, my solution to all of this was exactly what I had done the first time. I decided to act as if nothing had ever happened and continue my life.

Bella would be hurt at first, but she would get over it eventually. She was still young. As soon as the next attractive guy came her way, she would forget all about her little crush on me.

I should have known that it wouldn’t be that easy.

As the days pass, everything started to change.

Bella stopped coming over to our house, something that did not go unnoticed by Alice. One afternoon, I sat in the kitchen with a cup of coffee in front of me. The window that faced the front was open, and I could hear the two girls discuss this very issue.

Bella claimed that they used to hang out in this house all the time before, so what was so wrong with wanting to take a break from that and hang out at her place instead.

Alice did not buy that explanation and left Bella alone by our two mailboxes. I barely had time to greet my daughter before she had her cellphone pressed to her ear. She called Bella to ask what was wrong, but the conversation did not end well, or so I could tell by the slam Alice made with her bedroom door upstairs.

The strain between Alice and Bella caused my daughter to withdraw into herself. She wasn’t communicating a whole lot with me and Mary before, but now, she blankly refused to say anything at all. Her behavior worried Mary, and fights between us erupted more often than before.

She couldn’t stand how passive I was. When she was at her worst, she yelled that I only cared about myself.

It didn’t exactly help her temper that I let her throw these words and accusations at me. She wanted me to react, to yell back, and claim that she was wrong, but I couldn’t. Deep down, I knew that I was responsible for what my life had become.

So, it was with reluctance that Mary and I agreed to have lunch at the Swan’s house that very Saturday. Renée wanted to give back since we invited them over a couple of weeks before, and she also said that she hoped it would help the girls find their way back to each other.

That we agreed with reluctance was because lunch with the Swan’s meant pretending, smiling when you felt like screaming, constant bragging from Charlie, and incessant gossiping between our wives. It was not a play I enjoyed partaking in, but as it was, I had no choice.

I would have to meet Bella. I would have to interact with her.

My hands shook as I buttoned my shirt and began tying a marine blue tie around my neck. It didn’t help to repeatedly take deep breaths, either. All I could do was hope that my intense desire for Bella would not be visible to the others.

When we arrived at the Swan’s, they were in the middle of exchanging their old, wooden garden furniture with new, plastic ones. They were horrible, boring, and sterile, but it was obvious Charlie was pleased with them, and I immediately understood that he had bought them for this occasion. It made me want to throw up, but as the good neighbor I was, I complimented them, and a smug smile stretched across his face.

Inside, I shuddered at the whole display.

I felt a prickling at the side of my face and turned my head toward where I knew Bella was standing. For an infinite second, we are locked in each other’s gaze, but I think we were the only ones that noticed.

“Hi,” I said politely.

“Hi,” she replied, and she succeeded very well with sounding unaffected, although, since I had gotten to know her quite well during the course, I could see she was anything but that.

“Hi, Bella!” Mary greeted her and went up to kiss her cheek. “How pretty you look today!”

“Thanks,” Bella mumbled.

Renée went around and handed us drinks before we all went to the backyard where she and Charlie welcomed us with a simple dinner.

In the background, I heard giggling and two girls making fun of us boring adults as we clinked our glasses together and thanked our hosts for the invitation. The corners of my mouth twitched in amusement at the thought.

The next hours dragged by as we talked about mundane things like the weather, politics, and our jobs. I smiled and laughed at the right places when Charlie said something he deemed funny, and the whole time, I was able to avoid Bella.

There wasn’t much to avoid. Alice did a pretty good job at keeping her away from me, and I thanked my daughter for that.

However, my luck couldn’t last forever. Toward the end of the night, Alice’s cell rang and when she squealed before answering, I knew she would be occupied for a while.

Renée and Mary began to take all the dishes inside to the kitchen, and Charlie had disappeared a few minutes before without saying where he was going, so it was only me and Bella left in their garden.

Bella gave me a look before standing up and making her way toward the south end of the hedge where a huge apple tree created a shadow that hid everything from view. I knew for a fact that Alice and Bella had used that same space many times when they were looking for trouble, but I tried not to think about what kind of mischief Bella had planned for us before I followed her.

I couldn’t, not follow her. She was like a magnet.

Bella stopped just where she would be completely concealed, but she remained with her back to me.

Suddenly, I felt the urge to explain why I had reverted to ignoring her.

“Bella,” I started lowly, and her shoulders tensed up as if she was expecting me to yell at her or something. “We need to take it easy, don’t you think?” I asked her, but she did not answer me. “I mean…it would be impossible to…” I couldn’t find the right words to explain it. I didn’t know how to phrase it so that she would understand. For her it was probably as simple as me not liking her enough to take the chance—if she only knew.

“If we were to meet in that way…” I had to be careful not to say anything that would spark hope inside of her. I only wanted to explain it once, and I needed her to understand what it was she was asking of me by staying silent. “It would be hard for our families to associate, and we would constantly have to play theatre. I already am in a way, and I don’t think I can handle adding another level to the character I already play. And I can’t do that to Mary. I would feel like an ass.”

Bella remained silent, but I knew she was soaking up every word, and I also knew that she didn’t believe that to be the entire truth. She didn’t have to say it out loud. I could hear it in her silence.

“I don’t want to do this with you, Bella,” I said truthfully, but the words came out harsher than I intended. “I can’t start a relationship that might not have a future. It makes me feel like I have no control. Emotionally, I mean. Not now. Not at my age. Do you understand?”

I wished that she would turn around so that I could see her face, but it also made it easier to say all of this to her back, but I would have appreciated it if she said something to me. All she gave me was a shrug.

“I have too much to lose, Bella. Who knows what you’ll feel for me in six months?”

“I haven’t exactly asked you to marry me,” she finally snapped at me. I flinched at the hurt in her voice.

“No, no, I know that! What I’m trying to say is that I don’t want to take any risks with what I’ve got. I don’t want to even think about what would happen if Alice and Mary suddenly found out.” I sighed deeply. “I know it’s difficult for you to understand. Mary and I have been married for twenty-three years, and—”

“I know exactly how long you’ve been married,” she said and defensively crossed her arms across her chest. “And you don’t have to explain anything. I understand better than you think.”

She huffed slightly, and it tore at me, but it was for the best.

“I’m sorry, Bella,” I said genuinely. “I never meant for any of this to happen.”

I took a step closer and gently placed my hand on her bare shoulder. I let it remain there a second before removing it and backing away from the girl that had succeeded in capturing my heart, returning to what my life had been before her.

 **A/N:** I never promised a happy ending…Sorry if that upset you, but I wanted to write a realistic story as things like this do happen in real life.

Now I have considered continuing the story, but then I must warn you, our couple will spin a web of lies and cheating will be involved, more so than it already has, and I haven’t decided if it should have a happy ending then between the couple because that would most certainly mean that Bella would completely lose Alice as a friend.

So it’s up to you! If you absolutely want to read more drama, then tell me! Otherwise, this is it.

Thanks so much for reading!

Much Love

MarieCarro :-*


	2. Continuation

****A/N: No you are not being deceived! This is actually a continuation of Forbidden Attraction. So many of you hoped I wouldn't end it where I ended the previous chapter, and while that was my intention at first, some devil got a hold of me and had me write this continuation ;-) I hope you'll like it!** **

*****This continuation is un-beta'd, so bear with my minor mistakes 'kay?*** **

* * *

The summer transformed into fall and I watched with a heavy feeling in my heart as the U-Haul truck on the Swan's driveway was slowly filled with Bella's things.

She had told me during one of our many conversations that she would probably attend the local college eventually, and her sudden decision to move out of state left me with the feeling that I was the reason for her flight out of town.

Actually, I was pretty much certain of that point. I know I would have done the same had I been in her shoes.

The idea to do exactly that was very appealing to me.

My decision to place a lid on my feelings for Bella and leave her alone had not caused a miraculous improvement on my marriage. Mary and I were still fighting like two male cats over territory, mostly because Alice had not calmed down and was acting out even more than before.

Just last month she had told us that she was not going to college. She wanted to go to L.A. and become a model.

When neither Mary nor I agreed with her, she threw a tantrum fit for a five-year-old and stormed out of the house.

Later that night, she came home sporting a taped-on bandage on the small of her back, and I just about choked on my own spit because I knew immediately what my baby girl had done in her rage.

"Alice Masen, please tell me that's not what I believe it is on your back."

She had smirked at me like the little devil-spawn she acted as. "Well, Daddy, I don't know what you believe it is, do I?"

Mary had entered the room, then, and all hell had broken loose.

Profanities I'd never heard being uttered in my house before exited both my wife and daughter's mouths. The line: "I fucking hate you!" had been followed by running steps up the stairs and a slamming door that caused the windows to rattle in their frames.

Bella exited her house with a box in her arms. She was wearing jeans that hugged her hips sinfully and a jacket that emphasized her waist with a belt. Her long, wavy hair was loose and when the wind caught it, she took my breath away. She didn't look nineteen to me at that moment and my desire for her flared up violently.

A guy on an MC turning onto my driveway pulled me from the vision of my young neighbor. He dismounted the powerful vehicle after killing the engine, but he didn't remove his helmet so I had no idea what he looked like. However, I could see blonde curls peeking out from under it, and even though he was covered in leather from head to toe, it was obvious the guy was muscular.

I frowned when I heard the unmistakable sound of my daughter's feet coming down the stairs, and I understood that the tool outside was waiting for her.

It would be over my dead body that my baby would ever get on that death machine behind a guy that was quite apparent too old for her.

She tried to pass the kitchen unnoticed, but I stopped her.

"And just where do you think you're going, young lady?" I asked to bring her to the attention that I knew what she was trying to do.

I heard her groan before she appeared in the doorway with bad attitude written across her painted face. She was wearing way too much black around her eyes, and the piercings in her lower lip and nose, which had given me an aneurysm when I saw them the first time, were on full display.

"Jasper's band has a gig tonight and he invited me to the pre-party."

I stared at my daughter and wondered, not for the first time, what had caused this change in her. From where had this rebellious attitude come?

"Jasper? Who's Jasper? How old is he?"

"Twenty-eight," she replied with a shrug, and the coffee cup in my hand very nearly slipped from my grip.

"Alice, you're only twenty years old. Don't you think he's a bit too old for you?"

She huffed and crossed her arms over her chest. She mumbled something under her breath that I didn't catch.

"What was that?" I asked.

"Nothing," she said and then bent down to tie her shoe lace that had become untied.

"Honey, you are not getting on that motorcycle with that boy, do you hear me?"

She looked up at me from her crouching position. "Oh yes, I am," she said calmly and straightened out before heading for the door.

"Get back here, Alice Masen!" I called and followed her through the door. She was already sitting behind the boy, her arms around his waist, and he was revving the engine. "Alice!"

I felt my fury fill my body as I helplessly stared after the disappearing vehicle. I was clueless when it came to that girl. Mary and I had done everything we could think of. She got lots of attention from us so there was no way she could feel neglected.

I just didn't understand.

A deep sigh escaped me and I turned to go back into the house. My eyes swept over the neighborhood and locked with dark brown ones.

Bella's eyes were filled with sadness, but when our eyes met, they changed into pools of desire for a short second before anger and guilt became the dominant feeling in them.

She hurriedly broke our connection and bent down for another box and I disappeared inside.

***

I waited five seconds after the phone began to ring on my desk before I reached for it. One signal had rung four times already before the caller hung up the phone. Once, I'd gotten a 'hello' out before the click resounded in my ear.

When I finally checked the number, I recognized it all too well, and I wondered what drove her to call me, but hang up before I answered. My stomach clenched at the thought of her thinking about me, possibly missing me; her body aching to have me close as mine did for her.

A full minute passed, but she didn't call again, and my heart dropped down into my stomach.

I knew it was wrong of me to cling to the hope that she would discard my words from that faithful summer day in her parents yard, but some days I couldn't bring myself to care about right and wrong, and I wanted to call her as much as she appeared to want to talk to me.

Why would she discard my words, though? She was so young, and while I had been completely truthful at the moment, how would she be able to predict that my determination to fix my family would waver so much after only one summer?

She couldn't, because not even I could. I thought it would be easier than it had proven to be. I thought my marriage wasn't doomed, and I thought my daughter wasn't beyond saving, but here I was in my office, second guessing all of that.

The signal that told me I had a customer out in the carpentry shook me from my damning thoughts, and I exhaled sharply before reattaching the mask of the character I played whenever I wasn't alone or with her.

However, the mask fell as soon as my eyes landed on the young woman in front of me. Only two months had passed since I saw her father drive her to college with that big U-Haul trailing behind them, but I could tell she had changed a lot. Her dark hair looked matte, she had circles underneath her eyes and she had lost a bit of weight. The changes weren't very noticeable, but I had spent hours of sleepless nights thinking about her, and I was positive I could describe her face perfectly. That was why I saw the changes immediately.

"Hi," I breathed out when she remained quiet.

Bella swallowed and inhaled before opening her mouth. "Hi," she replied quietly, and then she looked down. "It...fell and broke," she continued. I frowned in confusion as I didn't understand what she was talking about at first, but then I noticed the vanity mirror frame she was supporting on her hip. I recognized it as a mirror frame I had made for her myself when she and Alice were still children. Her parents had asked me to make if for her birthday, and I had gladly done it. I was amazed that she still had it.

Suddenly I felt embarrassed. Of course that was the only reason she was here. It wasn't like she wanted to see me. She needed the frame repaired and since I made it, I was the best choice for it to be done properly.

That was probably why she had called before. She had battled with herself whether to call or to just come here with it herself. As she stood before me now, I realized that she was a lot stronger than I had given her credit for. I would never have been able to stand in her shoes in that moment.

I nodded slowly. "I see that," I said as an answer to her explanation for why the frame was broken. "I should be able to fix it." I walked up to her and took the mirror from her hands. I turned around and walked to my workbench to place it there. "Are you on break from college?" I asked in an attempt at a normal conversation.

"Mhm," she said quietly, and I turned back to face her. She was looking down on her feet, but I could still see the red spots on her cheeks and I wondered what had caused her embarrassment.

I simply looked at her for a short moment, and I knew that I couldn't even try to act ignorant toward her. I could never be anything but honest when it was just the two of us. With that knowledge, I threw all caution to the wind.

"It's good you're here," I started, but she interrupted me with a small smile.

"I'm not so sure about that," she said and looked up at me with dark, vulnerable eyes. They drew everything out of me. Every dark secret that should be kept under lock and key bubbled out before I could stop them.

"I dream about you. I think about you every day, and I have dreams about you like a teenage boy."

Her mouth fell open and then she shook her head while looking everywhere but at me. "There's just no sense when it comes to you, is it?" she asks rhetorically, but I answer anyway with a shake of my head.

"No...it's not." I walked closer to her and she finally looked at me again. "There hasn't been since I first heard your poems." I couldn't stop myself from placing a stray lock of hair back behind her ear, and then, as if some stronger force than myself told me to, I leaned forward and kissed her neck. Her answering moan caused all reason to leave my head, and I stepped even closer so that our bodies were flush against each other. My hands moved to her hips to keep her close and I felt myself harden further with every second.

"Someone could walk in any second," she breathed, and I had a small second of clarity when I realized she was right, but my mind was soon clouded again with thoughts of her naked body beneath mine.

"Not in my office," I said, and Bella leaned away slightly to look at me with heavy, lust-filled eyes. She appeared to contemplate something, but then she stepped away from me completely, and I wanted to protest at the cold air that hit me where she was pressed just seconds before.

She didn't leave, though, as I'd thought she would. Instead, she locked the entrance door and turned back to me. I felt shocked and relieved at once, and when it truly sank in that she had no plans to leave, I held out my hand for her to take. This was going to be on her terms from the start. I would never do anything she didn't want.

She willingly accepted my offer and followed me to my office where I closed and locked the door behind us to be on the completely safe side. I knew exactly what I was about to do, and what lines I was about to cross, but when Bella was so close, none of that mattered. Still, it didn't mean that I wanted to put her in a position where we could possibly get caught.

I pulled her toward me and as soon as she was pressed against every inch of me, she stretched up to find my lips with hers. I instantly leaned forward and the pure taste of her exploded in my mouth, spread out to every fiber and made my blood boil as well as rush down south at a speed it made me light-headed.

I tried to touch every part of her through her clothes, over her back and down toward her bottom, tightening my hold on her to keep her against my ever hardening cock. My violent lust scared me. It had never been like that before. Not that kind passion. Not that all-consuming, raging, I-have-to-have-you-now-or-I'll-explode kind of lust.

"You didn't want to," I hear Bella mumble in my ear. "You didn't want this," she said, and the confusion was there in her breathless voice.

"But now I do," I answered her tightly. "I can't even remember the last time I wanted to this much." I snaked my hand underneath her sweater and traced her back until I felt the band of her bra. With just a twist of my hand, I unclasped it, and she gasped. I stopped as I suddenly realized that while she hadn't done anything but show me she wanted this, too, she hadn't actually said it.

I leaned away from her and studied her face. "What about you?" I asked. "Do you want to?"

She didn't answer me with her voice. She only pressed herself against me and it was as if every barrier was just obliterated. Both of us fumbled with the others clothes as we tried to get them out of the way as fast as possible, and all the while, our mouths never lost contact.

I grabbed a hold of her and lifted her up on my desk and moved one of my hands over her thigh and in between her legs. She was soaking wet, and my fingers easily slid inside her hot center. Her moan was loud and her muscles clenched tightly around me.

With strength I didn't know she possessed, she pulled me on top of her and locked her legs around my waist. I pulled my hand away and took support on the desk instead as I pushed into her so hard it caused the wood underneath us to creak.

It didn't last long. Half of a minute at the most. She clenched unbelievably hard around me, and I felt myself swell before my own orgasm exploded.

In the middle of the euphoria, I heard how my desk organizer fell over and everything inside it clattered out all over the floor.

For a moment, the world was perfect.

For a moment, we were in each other's arms, and I just had to kiss her neck, her shoulders, and her soft lips.

"I'm sorry," I said with a chuckle. "I couldn't control myself. You make me feel like a teenager all over again."

She smiled back at me with the most beautiful smile I had ever seen. "You have nothing to apologize for. Nothing at all."

I wanted to remain in that moment, but our choice of place to have sex on wasn't very comfortable, and my back was protesting loudly. With a grunt, I straightened up and pulled out of Bella before helping her to sit up.

As we began pulling our clothes back on, reality slowly came back to me, and I realized what we had just done, and how completely irreversible it was. What would happen now? What did Bella expect would happen now?

In order to give myself some more time to think it all through, I asked her the last thing I believe she expected. "Have you eaten anything?" She shook her head with wide, confused eyes, but I didn't acknowledge her confusion. "We could go to Frank's if you want."

"Sure."

With tense silence, I drove us to the small diner, and we didn't say anything until we placed our orders with the waitress. Bella only ordered a coffee, and I frowned.

"You're not going to eat?" I asked.

"I'm not hungry," she replied, but I wasn't satisfied with that answer. I had noticed when she stepped into my carpentry that she had lost weight, but now it was starting to worry me.

"You've lost weight," I pointed out, but she didn't like that very much.

"Well, that's all on you."

I flinched at her words, and for the first time, I understood what kind of impact I'd made in her life. It made me feel ashamed, and I didn't say anything else. Neither did she, and I lost my appetite. I had only eaten half, but I was already feeling nauseous. I pushed my plate away and gazed through the window. A group of people in Bella's age stood across the street, talking and laughing, and with a surge of sadness, it came to me that I was pulling Bella away from what she was supposed to be doing.

She was supposed to enjoy her break from college by going out with friends; dating guys and partying; making memories that would last a lifetime.

"What are you thinking?" she asked me, and I turned to face her again. With a humorless smile stretching across my face, I leaned back in my seat and crossed my arms.

"I was wondering about the mess I've made."

It's quiet again, and I could see how she was processing my words.

"Do you regret it?" she asked.

I shook my head before actually knowing I was doing it, but I also instantly knew that it wasn't a lie. "I can't," I replied. "It's impossible for me to ever regret it. Do you?" I had to ask. There was a big possibility that everything had changed for her now. That she had now realized it wasn't what she had fantasized about.

"No," she said without fail.

Relief flooded through even though I had no right to feel it. "Good."

We ended up spending hours together, and it started to feel like it did before feelings came in and destroyed everything. Back when we were at the writing course and simply enjoyed talking about books and authors, but like every time we allowed ourselves to forget reality for a second, it came back with a vengeance, this time when I drove us back to the carpentry, and I had to go back inside.

Bella stood awkwardly with her hands in the pockets of her jacket as neither of us knew how to proceed from there.

"Now what?" she eventually asked, and I hesitated slightly. I wished I could tell her we could be together, but it wasn't that simple. I was still married, and her best friend was my daughter. Things couldn't get more complicated than that.

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe we should...take it slow for a while," I continued despite hating myself for it. I didn't want to hurt her, but we couldn't just jump into anything.

I unlocked the door to the shop. "I'll have your frame fixed by next week. It will be as new, I promise." I tried to lift the heavy feeling that was surrounding us, but it didn't help.

"Thank you..." Bella said, but her eyes were unhappy, and I just couldn't stand seeing her like that, so I took a quick look around before I placed my hand underneath her chin and lifted her lovely face up toward me so that I could give her a kiss goodbye.

When we parted, she still looked sad, but not as defeated as before. "Take care of yourself," I said, and she nodded before taking a step back and started walking away from me. I looked after her for a few seconds before I went inside.

***

Bella was back at college and with every day that passed, I came closer to figuring out that my marriage couldn't be saved, and I started to connect the dots between Alice's behavior and my fights with Mary. She got progressively worse the day after a fight between Mary and me had taken place, and I knew that she would only continue her destructive behavior unless a change was made.

A change I had been contemplating for almost a year but had not dared to approach fully until now. It wasn't just for myself anymore. It was for my daughter as well, because it was not healthy for her to live in the environment her mother and I was creating.

I stayed in my car for a long time that night, trying to build up my courage to go inside and discuss what was needed with Mary. I was dreading it, but it had to be done.

I climbed out of my car and took a few deep breaths before walking up to my door and going inside.

A strong sense of Déjà Vu hit me when I heard Alice's music blaring from her room, causing the walls to vibrate, and my wife talking on the phone, her crossed leg unconsciously bopping in time with the beat of the music.

The only difference this time was that when Mary saw me, she didn't smile, and it only further cemented my choice to have this discussion tonight, so after I had hung up my jacket, I walked past her into the living room to wait for her to finish her call.

She did only two minutes later, and she stood up to walk to the kitchen, but I stopped her. "Mary, could you come in here for a second?" I called out, and she appeared in the doorway after a few seconds.

"What?" she asked, and while her voice was tight, her eyes and face were weary. She was as tired of fighting as I was, but I knew she wouldn't agree quietly with what I was going to suggest.

"We need to talk about what's going on between us, Mary. Because what we're doing isn't working out," I said, and she immediately straightened her stance as she waited for the rest of it. "I can't continue like this, for my own sake, but also for Alice's."

Mary looked at me cautiously, the frown on her face smoothing out and her eyes narrowing. "What are you saying?"

"I want to get a divorce."

It was completely silent for a beat, and then a reply came, but not from where I expected it.

"What?" came from the stairs, and then Alice became visible as she descended the last few steps and came up behind her mother. The music was still playing in her room, and that was why neither of us had heard her coming down the stairs.

I closed my eyes and exhaled in defeat. This didn't go as I had planned. Mary and I were supposed to talk about it first, just the two of us, and after that, we would tell Alice, but now I dropped the bomb not only on my wife but our daughter as well.

"Alice, honey, would you be so kind and go back to your room? Your father and I need to talk alone," Mary said, and I had to give her credit for remaining so calm in front of Alice. I don't think I would have been able to had the roles been reversed.

"I'm not just going back there after hearing that," Alice protested. "What the hell is going on? Dad, are you serious?"

"Alice, please!" Mary said a bit harsher, but she refused.

"Mom, you can't just—"

"Alice Masen, go back to your room now!"

Alice flinched when Mary raised her voice—I did too—and her eyes watered slightly before she ran up the stairs. The music was shut off, and the house became eerily quiet.

Mary walked closer to where I was standing, and when I looked into her eyes I had to fight the urge to take a step back. I don't think I'd ever seen her look at me with such detestation.

"Who is she?" she asked with a deadly calm voice that scared me to my core. I had not expected that question at all, and for a moment I feared that one of her friends had seen me with Bella and told her. Despite that possibility, I decided to act stupid.

"What do you mean?"

Mary made a disgusted sound. "Don't take me for a fool, Edward. I can take a lot, but don't insult my intelligence."

She still hadn't confirmed that she truly knew what I had done, so I held tight to my act. "I would never do that. I truly don't understand what you're referring to."

"Oh please! All the signs are there. Working late almost every night, how you're distancing yourself from me. You haven't touched me for months. I know you're cheating on me, Edward, so just tell me who the slut is that's fucking my husband!"

I knew then that she didn't know about me and Bella. She was interpreting signs and suspecting, but she didn't have any proof. I hated myself for playing that game, but I knew it needed to be done, or everything could turn very ugly.

"You haven't once perhaps thought all of those things could be because our marriage is falling apart? That I'm working late because I don't want to be home fighting with you? That I haven't touched you because that spark died years ago?" It was cruel of me to say it, but it was also all true. Bella and I had sex once, so any signs Mary thought herself to have seen were because of what I had just told her.

"You fucking bastard!" she screeched at me, and I groaned. This was exactly what I hoped to avoid. I had wanted to have a grown up discussion about all of this. I had falsely believed that we could have settled things between us without throwing insults at each other, but that was just not how things worked in our household, and it was also one of the reasons why we had to split up. Neither of us was happy, and it was only stupid to continue and force it.

Mary inhaled to continue her string of insults, but I stopped her before she could truly begin. "Look, you're not exactly convincing me to change my mind here. I want a divorce, and that's final." I left the living room and went out to the hall where I put on my jacket and grabbed my car keys.

"Are you going to see  _her_?" Mary spat out as she followed me.

I sighed. "I'm going to sleep at my office tonight. Tomorrow, I'm contacting a lawyer." I placed my hand on the door knob, and that was when I heard quiet sniffling, so I turned around to see Mary in tears.

"Edward, please, let's talk about this. We can work it out, we always have before. I know we can do it this time. Please, just stay."

I had never liked seeing Mary cry, and a part of me wanted to go up to her, hug her and comfort her because when it all came down to it, we had been deeply in love in the past. She had been my everything until Alice was born, so while it was my decision to walk out, it still hurt a lot.

But I couldn't stay. This wasn't like previous fights. "I'm sorry, Mary. I really am, but we're not happy together. Not anymore. I believe this is what's best for all of us." With those words, I went outside and closed the door to my old life forever.

As the Christmas holidays neared, I moved out of the house Mary and I once bought shortly after we married, and into my new two-bedroom apartment on the other side of town. The divorce wouldn't be finalized until after the new years, but I just could not stay in the house anymore. It wasn't practical to sleep on the couch as a forty-five-year-old man with slight back issues.

Initially, Alice took Mary's side and hated my guts for almost two weeks, and that hurt me more than anything else ever had, but slowly, the part of her that was more adult than teenager, she understood why it had to happen.

She and I had a long talk about it—the longest conversation we'd shared since she started High School—and she truly listened and wanted to know how bad things had gotten between her parents. Of course, I was very careful to not pass any blame onto Mary. I simply told Alice that when two people are not meant for each other, despite earlier convictions of the opposite, the differences has a tendency to get in the way and cause irreparable cracks.

In the end, she became neutral and even asked to live with me on the weekends. It elated me that she asked that because it gave me hope that I could get the relationship I used to have with my daughter back. I missed my little girl, and how she used to look at me as if I was the greatest man on earth.

However, as happy as I was that Alice wanted to live with me on the weekends, it presented a problem that I wasn't aware of until it stared me in the face.

I came home from work one day about a week after I moved into the apartment. It was Friday, and when I saw a pair of Alice's shoes by the door, I realized that she had gotten here earlier, and it would be nice to have dinner together just the two of us, but then I spotted the other pair of shoes that I didn't recognize.

I heard voices from the living room, and curious to see who our guest was, I went there only to freeze on the spot when it became all too clear.

On my new couch, my daughter slouched with her eyes glued to the TV, but my attention was on the woman that starred in my dreams.

Both of them turned their heads when they heard me, and while Bella's face became slightly red, my daughter acted as if everything was normal.

"Hey, Dad. I hope it's okay I invited Bella over for dinner. We didn't know when you would come home, so we ordered pizza. It should be here soon."

It took me a second to collect myself, but I hoped Alice didn't notice, and I tried to answer her as I would have before this entire mess happened. "That's absolutely fine with me. I'm going to change and take a shower, but let me know when the food's here."

"Sure," she nodded and turned back to the TV.

Bella and I locked eyes for a moment, but when those beautiful eyes of her started to have their usual effect on me, I fled to my bedroom.

As I stood underneath the spray of warm water, my thoughts ran rampantly in my head.

How had I not anticipated this? Alice and Bella were friends, after all, maybe not the best friends they used to be, but still friends as far as I was aware. Of course Alice would invite her over here eventually, but this quick?

Why was Bella even home? Was she already on her Winter break? How long was she back for? Was there time for us to talk? To meet up?

Images of our time on my desk in the carpentry flashed behind my eyelids, and I felt myself longing for her; for her heat; for her arms and legs locked around my body. I wanted her so bad because now that I'd been with her once, it wasn't just a fantasy anymore. I knew how she felt, and I knew what she looked like when she came.

All of that had ruined me, and I wanted more. In fact, I wanted it all.

A knock on the door of my en-suite bathroom woke me up, but it also made me realize that I was rock solid, and I was positive no amount of cold water would make it go down.

"Yeah?" I called out, and it sounded as if I was being strangled.

"Pizza's here! Are you done soon?" Alice said through the door, and you would think that would help me, but it did absolutely nothing.

"I'll be out in a minute. Go ahead and start without me," I replied and when silence met my ear, I figured she did as I told her. I exhaled and looked down at myself. Then, I shamefully took my cock into my hand and closed my eyes as I let those images of Bella underneath me fill my mind.

It was the most pathetic and disgusting jerk-off in the history of time, because not only was the woman I was fantasizing about out in my living room eating pizza, but my daughter was too.

When I was done, I had to swallow several times to try and dissolve the guilt that was building up inside of me. It didn't help, though, because the truth was that if Alice hadn't been here, I wouldn't have felt bad for what I just did. If Bella had been the only one here, I would have invited her into the shower and done a whole lot more than just jerking off like any other hormonal teenage boy.

I tried to push all of those thoughts out of my head as I dried off and put on my clothes. It worked to an extent, but when I joined my daughter and Bella in the living room where they were looking at some movie while munching on the large pizza on the table, I still felt like the biggest pervert ever.

Bella's attention drifted from the movie from time to time and I noticed every time, but only once did I look back and smile. It caused her to blush, and I wanted to chuckle because she was so different from when we were alone. I had gotten to know the side that was blunt and bold; passionate and with the sexy confidence that she could seduce me.

I wanted to explore that side more than I already had, and while I really had no defense at all, that was my reason to offer Bella a ride home when she said it was time for her to leave.

"Uuh, sure. That'd be nice," she said, and I got up from my seat to put on my jacket and shoes while she said goodbye to Alice.

As soon as the door closed behind us and the lock clicked, I pulled Bella toward me and began devouring her as if I was a starving man. She was just as fierce as she kissed me back, and I had to hold back a groan so that Alice wouldn't hear the echo.

"I've wanted to do that the entire evening," I said with a gruff voice once we pulled apart.

"Me too," Bella agreed breathlessly. She opened her eyes and looked into mine before asking what I knew she would ask. "Is it because of me? Is that why you and Mary are getting a divorce?"

"Let's talk about this in the car," I said and placed my hand on the small of her back to lead her to the elevator that would take us below to the garage.

Once safe inside my Volvo and on the road, I answered Bella's question. "Bella, I don't want you to ever feel that it's on you that Mary and I are splitting up, okay? It was inevitable and long overdue. I mean, don't you remember my poems from the course?"

"Of course I do," she instantly replied. "I just can't stop wondering if I helped speed things along."

When she said that, I knew I had to be truthful. "My feelings for you changed me, yes. It made me aware of how bad everything had gotten, but I would never say it's your fault. It's all on me, and I don't want to hear of you feeling guilty in any way. If anything, you helped me and it was long before our involvement became as complicated as it is now."

"I wish it didn't have to be," Bella admitted, and I agreed with her. "I know you don't want me like that, though," she continued.

I frowned in confusion. "What do you mean?"

She smiled reassuringly. "It's okay. I remember what you told me back in July. You can't take the chance with me, and you have too much to lose. Maybe not with Mary anymore, but certainly with Alice. I get it. I'm happy with whatever you feel you can give me."

The pure unselfishness of this girl astounded me, but the fact that she practically offered to be my mistress also worried me. Didn't she have any self-preservation? What was her reward in this deal?

"Do you really believe I don't want to be with you completely? Without all the secrets and hiding?" I asked, and I saw in my periphery how Bella looked at me questioningly.

"You said that—"

"I lied," I interrupted her incredulously. "It was the only way to push you away at that point. If I hadn't, who knows what would have happened with you. Maybe you would have decided that college wasn't for you. That you had to stay to be close to me. Don't you see how messed up that is, Bella?"

She didn't say anything and I was afraid I had hurt her enough for her to not want anything to do with me anymore. I would respect that decision if that was what she wanted.

We remained silent the rest of the way, and when I stopped outside her parents' house, we shared another look. I wanted to kiss her goodbye, but it was impossible to do that here. Her parents could be looking out through the window or Mary could come outside with the trash or something like that.

Before she got out of the car, though, I gently placed my hand on her thigh. "How long before you have to go back to school?"

"Two weeks."

"I want to see you again. Alone this time. Are you free next week?"

She nodded. "Yeah. After Christmas, I don't have any plans."

"So, Thursday then?"

"Not on your desk, though, right?" she said, and it caused me to chuckle.

"No, I was thinking more of my apartment. Take the bus into town. I will pick you up at Frank's."

Once again, she nodded, and I moved my hand over her thigh slightly before she got out of the car.

***

My Christmas was very uneventful.

I spent Christmas Eve with Alice since Mary had insisted on Christmas Day with our daughter. I didn't put up a fight because the whole reason for our divorce was so that Alice wouldn't have to witness any more of them.

I was sort of happy when I got the news from Mary that Alice had indeed calmed down a bit. Of course, she still had those days where she was almost out of control, but she was a lot more open to listening to both Mary and me when we explained that her behavior wasn't something that would get her anywhere in life.

The reason that I wasn't a hundred percent pleased was because my daughter was still dating that tool with the motorcycle. Apparently, his name was Jasper, he was a bass player in an alternative rock band, and I had imprinted that name into my memory the second I understood he was going to be a big part of my daughter's life, in case I would ever have to do anything not-so-legal to protect my little girl.

However, I still messed with Alice from time to time, pretending as if the tool's name was hard to remember, and I continuously mispronounced it. I'm sure she knew I was teasing her at this point, but it didn't take the fun out of my little game.

It was very good that Alice and I got Christmas Eve to be together. It gave me the chance to get to know her again, and I cherished that like nothing else.

I was also a bit worried, though, that building a new foundation with Alice, strengthening our relationship, could possibly make everything worse if my dirty secret ever came out. Even worse was that I wished it wasn't a secret. I wanted to be with Bella in every way. I had long ago passed the stage of simple physical attraction and juvenile feelings when it came to that young woman.

However, I was sure it wasn't ever a possibility for us to be together. By now, it wouldn't just ruin my life, it would ruin her's as well.

Alice would never speak to her again, and she would never have a family of her own; I was too old to start all over again. She would lose so much with her choice of being with me.

That didn't stop me from longing for the moment when we would be alone, truly alone, in my apartment, and as I drove to pick her up, my heart was about to burst out of my chest because of nerves that I didn't know I could even feel anymore. Something else was also about to bust free down south, but for a completely different reason.

I saw her the second I drove into Frank's parking lot, and she took my breath away. It was very cold outside and she was dressed quite casually in jeans, a white knitted sweater, her brown winter coat and boots. She had an adorably cute white hat over her brown locks, and her shoulders were slightly hunched against the cool wind. Still, she was the most beautiful girl in that moment.

She looked toward my car as I drove closer to her, and I had barely stopped moving before she had the door open and climbing inside.

"Fuck, it's cold," she said as soon as she was next to me, and I looked over at her in slight shock because I'd never heard her curse like that before, but it didn't bother me. I actually, weirdly enough, liked that she was a bit harsh around the edges.

"I can turn up the heat if you want," I replied and reached for the switch, but her freezing cold fingers stopped me.

"No, it's fine. I'll get warm soon enough."

My mind was instantly in the gutter as I contemplated all the ways we could get warm once we were at my place, and I know Bella knew where my thoughts went because when my eyes met hers, she had a small smile stretching across her face.

"You look beautiful by the way," I said, but it caused her to roll her eyes.

"Only to you," she replied.

"No," I disagreed. "I believe anyone would say you're beautiful right now. All flushed and dark-eyed."

Bella reached out a hand and touched my thigh. It felt as if she zapped me and it went straight to my crotch. With a sigh, I removed her hand.

"Let's wait with that, or I will drive us into the ditch." She gave me another smile and then turned to look out her window.

We didn't waste a single second once we entered my apartment. Gone was the blushing, shy girl Bella was around others as she grabbed me by my hand and led me into my bedroom. She was so confident it was almost as if this was her place and I was the guest.

"Don't you want to eat first?" I asked with an amused smile as I followed her.

Her own smile widened and she shook her head. "I'd rather not waste any time on something I can do at home."

I wasn't going to argue with her. I was at her mercy, and she made sure I knew it as she let go of my hand and knelt down before me, unzipped the fly in my jeans, released my cock and took me in her mouth as if it wasn't the first time she did this to me.

For a second, I blacked out from the pure pleasure of being inside her hot mouth, and I almost fell to the floor. Bella didn't appear to notice my struggle. Her eyes were closed as she focused on what she did; her long eyelashes brushed against her cheeks and her brown locks moved in time with her rhythmic movements. Her tongue was incredibly soft as she seemed to wrap it around me, and for a short while I wondered where she had learned her technique, but then as my orgasm approached, I threw that thought out of my head.

I was on the very edge of coming when Bella suddenly moved away, and I was so stunned by her sudden stop that I stood like a complete idiot for a few seconds while she walked to my bed, taking off one item of clothing with each step. When she was completely nude, she turned to me. "Are you gonna join me?" she asked innocently, and all I could do was gape.

"Who are you?" I asked, mostly to myself and it only caused Bella to laugh.

I removed my own clothes and stood in front of the woman I'd just understood had a lot more to her than I first thought, and with a small push, she forced me down on the bed. She crawled up next to me on all four and took a hold of my hand, which she brought down toward her center. She was warm and already very wet, and even though she had deprived me of my own orgasm, I wasn't going to deny her hers.

She writhed underneath my hands and gasped when the pleasure took her over, and I swear, she was the sexiest woman I'd ever laid eyes on in that moment. I wanted to see if she would hold on to her confidence if I showed her that I wanted her to take control, and therefore, I grabbed her leg and pulled it over my hip and rolled over on my back and she ended up on top. She didn't even hesitate as she used her hand to slip me inside of her, and when I was deep within, she started to slowly rotate her hips.

It was so different this time, compared to on my desk in the carpentry. It didn't have the feeling of having to rush through anything or that we had to keep quiet or hide away. It was so very liberating and we could indulge ourselves in our feelings.

My erection grew harder and larger and it felt as if I was about to bust wide open. The sensation was foreign to me and went far beyond simple sexual pleasure. It was as if something in her connected with me, altering everything.

Afterward, I was on my back; Bella was next to me with her hand on my chest and her leg slung across my hips. I had my arm around her and holding her hand against my side, just reveling in us finally being alone.

"Edward?" Bella said softly and I turned my head toward her. Her eyes were the softest brown I'd ever seen, and her face appeared to be glowing. She looked exquisite in her happiness, and my heart swelled, knowing that being here with me was what caused her happiness. "Kiss me," she said, and it wasn't a question, but I was all too happy to oblige.

Our mouths moved in sync and I couldn't believe I was so lucky to have this woman in my life.

When we parted, she moved even closer to me and brought her arms around my neck. My hands moved to hold her body against mine and she sighed contentedly. "What are you thinking?" I asked when she didn't explain her need to almost crawl inside me to be close enough.

"Just hold me," she replied. "It makes this more real." Her voice was quiet, but I could still catch the hint of skepticism.

"What do you mean?"

She exhaled, her moist breath hitting the skin on my shoulder and caused goose bumps. "I can barely believe you're with me. That you're lying here beside me. That you want me."

"Of course I want you. I always want you."

"I'll imprint every second of this into my head," she continued as if I had not said anything. "In case this is a one-time deal."

It was painful to know that I had instilled such insecurities in her, but she had all the right in the world to doubt me. I hadn't exactly been consistent when it came to her, and I understood her fears. Every time we went deeper into our relationship, I had pulled away for a time, and it was expected to leave its' mark on her.

This time, however, I wanted to let her know that I wouldn't pull back. While we couldn't, as of now, pursue a real relationship, right this moment, I didn't care about that. I just needed to let her know that then and there, she was mine and I was hers.

"It may be incredibly stupid of me to say this, or maybe it will lead to something amazing, but I need you to understand something." She looked up and supported herself on her elbows to look at me. "I know I've emphasized on how being with you makes me feel young again, but that's not the only reason for being with you. You make me feel something I haven't felt before, something I can't name yet. You've made me look at things differently, and I don't want to look back."

She opened her mouth, but I placed my finger over her lips because I wasn't quite finished. "You have every right to doubt me. I haven't been very kind to you or considered your feelings. I've been unforgivably selfish, but it's also because of that selfishness that I won't be able to let you go now because I'm in love with you."

Her eyes watered up and she appeared speechless, but I wasn't sure if it was a good thing or a bad ting. Finally, she opened her mouth again. "Wow, Edward, I don't know what to say."

I smiled and touched her cheek with the tips of my fingers. "You don't have to say anything. I don't even need to know if you feel the same way. I just wanted you to know."

She nodded, and then leaned forward to give me the sweetest, softest kiss. I couldn't stop there. We were completely alone in my apartment after all, and we had the entire day to ourselves. I didn't know what she had told her family about where she would be today, but I didn't care either. I pressed harder against her lips and rolled her over on her back so that I was hovering above her. With a small shift of my hips, I was between her legs again and easily entered her.

Our breathing was shallow, her cheeks and chest were flushed with color, and my skin tingled all over. Our moans echoed in the room and became increasingly louder as we rocked closer to that sweet, and somehow torturing, pleasure.

***

"I have chicken, beef patties, salmon...anything sound good?" I asked with my head in my fridge. Bella had insisted that she didn't want to waste our short time on eating, but when her stomach growled in time with mine, there was no way I would ignore it any longer, and therefore, we were now in my kitchen; Bella sitting by the table in a borrowed shirt and boxer shorts, and me looking in the fridge only wearing sweat pants. Neither of us had felt we wanted to get further dressed.

"You do know that I'm vegetarian, right?" Bella replied, and it caused me to stop in my tracks. I tried to think back to all those times our families had eaten dinner together, but I had never taken notice to what Bella ate. I had no idea if this was something she'd been for a long time or a recent occurrence.

I looked over my shoulder at her and gave her an apologetic smile. "I did not know that. Sorry."

She just shrugged. "It's okay. I can't blame you for having your thoughts on other things than my diet. I mean, we have only been neighbors for seventeen years and had family dinners together more times than I can count, but that's fine."

For a moment, I felt guilty for having missed this detail, but then I saw the gleam in her eyes, and I knew she was teasing me. I closed the door to the fridge and walked up to her. I was towering over her when she sat down, and she had to bend her neck back to be able to see my face. I stroke her hair and placed a hand underneath her chin before answering.

"How am I to take notice of your diet when you're sitting across from me looking more edible than the food?" I said and bent down to kiss her. I felt her giggle against my lips, but when I bent further down to get a hold of her legs assist me in wrapping her legs around my waist as I stood back up, her giggle transformed to a moan.

I turned us around and sat on the chair. I was already growing hard again and it didn't help that Bella was rolling her hips over my erection. Dry sex wasn't usually my thing because I didn't like making a mess in my pants, but with Bella, it felt so good I simply didn't care about my sweats.

Our mouths never parted as the thrusting of our hips became more irregular. I rubbed her hard against my cock by holding tight onto her ass with my hand, and the other went up to her breast where I touched her erect nipples with light feather touches.

Bella was so caught in the sensations and I knew she wanted to come desperately because one hand moved from where it had gripped my shoulder and went down inside her borrowed boxers to touch herself.

Just knowing that she touched herself was enough for me, and my orgasm shot through me at a speed it left me feeling dizzy and light-headed. The last time I came that fast was the first time Bella and I had sex, but this had felt a hundred times more intimate.

"We might have to postpone lunch," I said, and Bella laughed. "I need to clean up a bit, and my guess is that you do too."

"I do, but unless we take separate showers, we won't get very clean," she said against my mouth and kissed me again. We just couldn't stop touching or kissing. It was an all-consuming desire that was never sated, and it was that desire that caused me to shrug slightly as if our cleanliness wasn't an issue.

"Well, too bad, because I'm not getting in that shower without you. I've fantasized about having you in there with me ever since I was surprised by finding you sitting on my couch after I came home from work."

Her eyes glittered excitedly. "Are you serious?"

"Why do you think it took me so long to join you out here?" I answered, and for the first time since I picked her up at Frank's, a blush crept up on her cheeks. She was no-doubtingly imagining what I had been up to in the shower while she was sitting on the couch in my living room, non-the-wiser.

"You're a dangerous man, Mr. Masen. One day, I might regret crossing paths with you."

"I sure hope not."

It was past six when we knew we had to start saying goodbye. Bella insisted on taking the bus; I had opposed because it was pitch black outside, and I lived at least an hour by bus away from Bella's house, but she gave me the argument that if I drove her, we wouldn't be able to say goodbye properly because there could be people watching and there was no reason for me to drive her when Alice obviously was with her mother during the weeks.

I couldn't disagree because I knew Bella was right, but I still didn't like it.

We were standing by my front door; my hands were on her hips and her arms were around my neck as we kissed. I didn't want to let her go, and I was on the verge of asking her to stay the night, but the rational side of me told me it just wasn't possible.

"When can I see you again?" I asked when we parted and Bella sighed sadly.

"I have a week left before I have to go back to school. It's New Year's in three days, and then I have to go back on the fourth. Do you have time on the second?"

"I'll make time," I promised her, and she practically melted against me.

"Maybe you can come visit me at school?" she asked hopefully. "We won't have to hide there either."

It was very tempting as she said it, but I also knew that if I visited her at college, we would make the relationship official in ways I didn't think either of us was ready for yet. And I needed to establish my life after my divorce was final.

I truly wished the entire situation was less complicated, that Bella and I had been the same age at least because even if the gap didn't bother us, it sure would bother other people who felt they had a say in how we should live our lives.

A part of me, although a dark one, actually wished that Bella and Alice would stop being friends because that, too, would make everything easier. Alice would still hate that her dad was with someone who was technically younger than she was, but if they had no relationship, that would be the only thing she opposed of.

So, instead of giving Bella a solid answer, I replied with a, "We'll see."

After sharing one last kiss, and promises that we would meet again on January second, Bella walked out my front door. As soon as the sound of her steps out in the hall faded away, I realized how quiet my apartment was, and I had to put on some music to make the heavy feeling go away.

I had no idea how it would work out, but after that day, I knew that I had to have Bella in my life, and not as my mistress because she deserved so much more than that.

Somehow we would figure it out.

The question was just "when"?

* * *

****A/N: Don't worry, I'm not gonna leave it here but I didn't want this chapter to continue on forever either. I don't know when the next chapter will happen though because I haven't written it yet and if you're friends with me on FB, you know how much 2016 has screwed me over and while I can write some (this chapter for example) and do some manips and banners, my creativity has taken a huge blow and I have a hard time to sit down sometimes and do this.** **

****Anyway, things are getting more complicated in this story and the drama thickens. I decided to split Edward and Mary up because I really don't condone cheating, but some had to occur in this story to make it as realistic as possible.** **

****I don't know yet where our couple will end up. While I do write HEA's they're not always what my readers expect them to be, as those of you who have been with me for long have experienced.** **

****I guess I'll just quote Edward here and say: "We'll see..."** **

 

 


	3. Part Three

**A/N:** Yes it's true! Here's the third part of Forbidden Attraction for you, and since I know you have to wait for so long with each chapter, I'm certainly not going to keep you here ;-)

I just want to tell you that once again, this is unbeta'd so I hope my small mistakes aren't too cringe-worthy :-P

**PART THREE**

I woke up with a start, drenched in sweat and my sheets twisted around my legs.

It was the same way it had been every night since Bella went back to college. Each night, I dreamed of her; the smile she gave me when she thought I said something funny; the way her eyes changed when she went from entertained to excited; how she had no qualms about showing me what she wanted; her skin underneath my hands; her lips on mine; her quickened breath when she was getting close.

It all played on repeat in my dreams every night, and I always woke up just before the big climax with an erection that was rock solid.

It was bordering on ridiculous at this point, but I didn't know what to do. I still lived my life day to day. I went to the carpentry, I talked to customers, repaired and built furniture, met with Mary and our divorce attorney, spent time with Alice etc.

I was functioning. But it was during the night when I was alone and my subconscious took over that everything I tried to build up again was demolished. I knew what my mind was trying to tell me and that it would be in my best interest if I only listened to it, but if I could just pretend that my life wasn't a complete mess for just one more second, I would take that chance every time.

I looked over at my alarm clock and saw that it was four-thirty in the morning. I usually got up at six, but there was no way that I could fall back asleep now, and so I opted to take a long shower to wash the sweat off my body as well as jerk off since it was the only thing I could do to make my dick go down. I didn't even feel guilty for it anymore because Bella had said it was a turn on that I masturbated to images of her.

The day passed pretty much in the same manner as the previous days had, and the only difference was that at the end of the day, I changed into a suit in my office and headed to Mary's and my attorney's office to go through the final papers before I was officially divorced.

Mary was sitting on the couch in the waiting room when I arrived, and as soon as she saw me, she crossed her arms and quickly looked away. She had yet to get over the feeling of betrayal since I announced that I wanted us to go our separate ways. She always refused to look at me during these meetings, but after today, she had no choice but to move on. I hoped she would.

Only a couple of minutes later, our attorney, Mr. Jackson, opened the door to his office and invited us inside. Mary and I sat down on opposite sides of the table and were given a pen each.

“I have the final agreement here,” Mr. Jackson said and cleared his throat. “This marital settlement agreement is hereby entered between Mr. Edward Masen, hereinafter referred to as ‘Husband,' and Mrs. Mary Masen hereinafter referred to as ‘Wife. The parties were married on May 18th, 1991. Due to irreconcilable differences, Husband and Wife separated on November 21st, 2015, are currently living apart from and have agreed to continue living separate and apart from each other."

Mr. Jackson gave us a copy each and asked us to read through it thoroughly.

I placed the papers in front of me and began reading from where Mr. Jackson had stopped.

_Husband and Wife desire to outline their mutual rights and duties arising as a result of the marital relationship. Husband and Wife, therefore, agree to the following._

A list of our rights containing a whole lot of legal crap followed, and while I understood everything that was written down, all the words normally not used in a person's everyday vocabulary made my eyes tired and I had to rub them with the tips of my fingers before reading on.

_Husband and Wife have divided the property of the community to their mutual satisfaction as outlined below. Each party hereby waives any and all claim to any property in the possession or control of the other, except as listed below._

We had agreed that Mary was to keep the house we bought together only a week after we were married, and I would remain as the sole owner of the apartment I'd bought. We didn't make it complicated with our companies either. I got full ownership of my carpentry and Mary got the same with her salon.

A list of our loans and debts came after that, but since both of us had taken responsibility for our economy, it was a very short list.

_Husband and Wife agree that their community property and debts are minimal and that they have already divided it to their mutual satisfaction._

_Spousal support will not be provided, and henceforth, both parties relinquish and waive any right or claim to spousal support from the other from the date of this agreement forth. This waiver specifically applies to any action and law concerning either party, more specifically any action in divorce, dissolution, or separation._

_The following children were born of the marriage: Mary Alice Masen born on June 18_ _th_ _, 1995._

Since Alice was of legal age, that was the only time she was mentioned in the agreement, which was a relief on its own. Had she been under eighteen, the whole debacle of custody and whatnot would have been the recipe for disaster.

It just continued after that. Paragraphs about life insurance, tax matters, how we would notify each other if we moved etc. It felt as if it was never ending.

Finally, the space where our signatures and the day's date was to be written entered my vision, and I almost sighed in relief when I saw it. I looked up to see that Mary was also finished reading, and then Mr. Jackson gave me the original document where I signed at the bottom.

_Edward Masen (Husband) January 14_ _th_ _, 2016_

I slid the document over to Mary, and after giving me one last pleading look that I had to avert my eyes from, she placed her own pen on the paper and signed as well.

Mr. Jackson also signed as our attorney and witness, and that was it.

He collected his papers, put them in his briefcase and stood up. “I will have my secretary make both of you copies and send everything to the addresses you have provided.” He turned to me and shook my hand and then did the same with Mary. “Good luck in the future. Both of you.”

We nodded, and then all of us left the office together. Mary and I shared an awkward elevator ride down in complete silence, but it was outside the building when I headed in the direction of where I had parked my car that Mary stopped me by grabbing my arm.

“For all it's worth, Edward, I hope you'll have a good life.”

“I wish you the same,” I said sincerely.

She nodded sadly and then continued. “As hard as it might be to believe, I still love you, and I never wanted this. For both our sakes, I think we should avoid meeting again for some time.”

I agreed with her because even though it was unknown that I had Bella and a blooming relationship with her, she was someone I could move on with. I didn't think Mary had anyone like that. She said she still loved me, and it must be very hard for her to see our marriage fall apart like this. For her sake, I agreed with everything she said.

I held out my hand to shake Mary's as a gesture for a truce between us. "Take care, Mary." We parted, and I felt how a very heavy weight lifted from my heart. I was officially divorced. I wasn't married anymore, and even though that was only one obstacle of many before anything between me and Bella could be accepted, it was an obstacle that no longer stood in our way.

I didn't bother to turn on the radio in my car as I drove home. I just remained in the present and tried to wrap my head around the relief I felt.

My phone began to ring and I put it on speaker so that I could continue driving.

“Yeah?” I answered and focused back on the road.

“Hey Dad,” Alice's voice greeted me, and my thoughts immediately went to the possibilities of the kinds of trouble she could be in to give her a reason to call me. Alice rarely called, so there had to be a reason for her doing so now.

“Alice, honey, is something wrong?” I asked and instinctively lifted my foot from the gas in case I needed to turn around.

“I just got off the phone with Mom. She told me it's official now.”

I inhaled deeply and tried to find in me how to talk to my daughter about this. If there was something I absolutely hated about it all, it was that Alice was stuck in between. I loved my daughter more than anything in the world, and I didn't want her to feel hurt because of any of it.

“Yes, it is,” I replied, hoping that keeping it simple was the best way.

“Are you busy?”

“No, I'm on my way home.”

Alice paused and I was just about to ask again if something was wrong when she spoke. “Do you think you could meet me in the park?”

I was taken aback by her request. I knew which park she meant. It was the park I had taken her too numerous times when she was younger after I picked her up from daycare or school. In a way, it was our park, but we hadn't been there for years. Not since Alice started high school.

“Of course,” I said when I got over my shock. “I'm only twenty minutes away.”

“Okay, see you then.”

It was just after we hung up that everything clicked in my head and why I thought Alice was in trouble. She had sounded so sad, and it worried me. It made me want to do a u-turn and push down on the gas because if anyone had harmed my little girl, they'd have to answer to me. I knew it wouldn't be of any benefit for me to get pulled over for reckless driving, though, so instead, I used the next intersection to go back the same way I'd come from.

I saw Alice before I even parked the car. She was sitting on a bench, looking at the swing-set where a couple kids were playing, and her body hunched against the cold wind. Her hair had grown quite a bit since she chopped it off and colored it black, and I was so happy to see that her natural brown was growing back. I suspected she hated the length, though, because she kept shaking strands away that blew into her face.

A smile stretched over my face despite my worry. As I looked at my daughter, I couldn't help but marvel at the fact that I'd had a part in creating her. Out of everything, she was the best thing that had come out of my marriage with Mary.

Not wanting to startle her, I slowly approached the bench from behind. She turned when she heard my step, and to my despair, I saw that she had been crying. Her eyes were red-rimmed, and her lashes were wet even though she had obviously wiped her tears away.

Neither of us said anything as I opened my arms, inviting her for a hug, and when she accepted wholeheartedly, burying her face in my shirt and holding on to me tightly, my heart both warmed and broke at the same time. I still didn't know what was wrong, but I'll be damned if I didn't try to comfort my daughter to the best of my abilities.

When she let go of me, both of us sat down on the bench and I shifted my body toward her. “Alice, tell me why you're so upset.”

She sighed and looked down at her hands. “It's just that, hearing Mom tell me you two are officially divorced made me realize that you are never getting back together. I know you have already explained this, and I understand why you had to separate, but I guess, a part of me just always hoped you would make up, and then you'd move back home and everything would be normal again. It sank in today that it will never happen now.”

Alice's tears had started up again, and I placed my arm around her, leaned her against my side and kissed her hair. I was relieved that nobody had harmed my little girl, but it was painful to know that my decision was what caused her tears now.

It was difficult to find the words for what I wanted to say, but I did my best anyway. “Alice, your mom and I won't get back together again, but you have to know our love for you won't go away because of that. I won't leave you just because I don't live in the house anymore.” I stroked her hair gently, and she looked at me with glistening eyes. “You are my baby girl, and no matter what has happened between me and your mom, that won't change, and whenever you need me, all you have to do is call, and I'll come running. I won't even hesitate.”

“It's that I will have to call because you are not home that upsets me,” Alice replied, and I suddenly realized how young she sounded. She was going to turn twenty-one this summer, and as far as I knew, she had yet to apply to any college classes, and she had no plans to move away from home. I started to wonder if Mary and I had perhaps spoiled Alice a bit too much, which had caused her to remain a teenager longer than her peers.

My thoughts went to Bella. She was three months younger than my daughter, but she acted much more like an adult. In just a few months, she would have finished her freshman year at college. I couldn't figure out why there was such a huge difference between the two, and why Bella had matured so much faster than my daughter.

It was something I'd have to ask her the next time we met, but at that very moment, I had to act like a father and think about my daughter only. She needed me, but she also had to understand that she couldn't depend on Mary and me for the rest of her life.

“Honey, it's not as if we would have lived in the same house forever anyway. You're an adult now, and soon, you will move out of the house as well to build your own life and start your own family. I doubt you would want me to live in your guest room until I die just so that you don't have to call me." I said it all with a hint of humor in my tone, because I wanted her to see the ridiculousness in the picture I was painting up, and I guess it must have worked when she cracked a smile.

“God, no!” she said. “I love you, Dad, but not that much.”

I placed my hand over my heart in mock hurt. “Ouch. You're supposed to be nice to your old man.”

Still with a smile on her face, she leaned against me again. “You're not old, Dad,” she replied. “You'll never be old.”

I wound my arm around her shoulders and squeezed. I was so thankful that she and I got this moment, and I was in no rush to end it. She wasn't either and we sat on that bench for hours, just talking about whatever we came up with.

Alice and I hadn't had the best relationship for a few years, but it was during that moment that I dared to hope that we perhaps could be close once again someday.

~***~

“What are you doing right now?” Bella's voice in my ear was pure music, and her question made me smile and chuckle. It was such an innocent question, but my mind went into the gutter instantly.

Of course, my chuckle made Bella react. “What's so funny?” she asked, and I wished she was next to me instead of in her dorm room. The phone was our main way to talk but I missed seeing her, holding her, and kissing her.

“Just an old man's dirty thoughts, that's all,” I told her, but I should have known she would not let it go.

“Oh really? And what exactly was this _old_ man thinking?” she challenged as she emphasized on the word old. I knew she didn't like it when I kept pointing out our age difference, but sometimes I felt as if she wanted to sweep that particular issue under the proverbial rug. Since that wasn't possible, I kept reminding her because it was important that she knew what she was getting into by being with me.

“I was thinking about everything we could be doing if we weren't merely talking on the phone. I'm rather bored with my hand lately.”

Bella giggled, and the sound went straight to my crotch. “I've already invited you to come here. I'm sure I could scratch your itch,” she replied teasingly.

I wanted nothing more than to accept and tell her that I was on my way, but I couldn't. I sighed, and in return, I heard her sigh as well, so she obviously already knew what I was going to say. “I'm afraid the bed in your dorm room won't be sufficient for what I want to do with you, and I doubt your roommate would appreciate it either,” I said in an attempt to keep the light feeling of our conversation.

Bella scoffed, obviously annoyed with me now and she wasn't going to allow my avoidance. “My roommate is never here anyway. She's always with her boyfriend, and ever since she tried to hook me up with one of their friends, and I said I'm not available, she wants to know why _my boyfriend_ never visits me.” Her tone was irritated, and I couldn't blame her. “What do _you_ suggest I tell her?”

“Have you referred to me as your boyfriend?” I asked because I needed to know if she was actually putting official labels on our relationship.

She sighed again. "No, Edward, I never talk about you with anyone. They just assume since I'm pretty much the only person on campus that isn't participating in their partying and mating rituals."

“Why aren't you?” I asked, knowing why, but also hoping that I was wrong.

“Are you serious? Do you think I'm only playing around with you? I'm keeping away from that stuff for _your_ sake; for the sake of whatever you want to call that this is between us, but it doesn't mean that I don't wish I could join. Everyone told me that college is the most fun I will have in my life, but so far, all I've done is stay in my room, studying!”

I didn't say anything because my guilt was threatening to crush me. This was what I was afraid of from the beginning; that I was keeping Bella from experiencing the joys of being young and reckless. Her unconscious resentment for me had begun, and it was only going to build on until she exploded.

And that was why I said my next words, even though I hated them as soon as they formed in my mind. “I never said that you're exclusively mine. If you want to go out to have fun and explore, I'm not going to stop you.”

“What?!” she exclaimed, clearly shocked. “I would never do that! I'm not a cheater.”

I pinched the bridge of my nose between my thumb and middle finger to keep myself from blurting out what I truly wanted; that I wanted her to be only mine and no one else's ever again, that I wanted us to be official and not hide our relationship any longer. “Bella, you and I are not a couple, so it wouldn't be cheating,” I said instead, but the words tasted disgusting.

It was quiet for a long time, and I started to believe that maybe she hung up on me, but then I heard the quiet sob in my ear.

“Fuck you, Edward Masen, and your fucking lies!” Bella finally said. I heard that she was crying and her swearing told me that she was on the edge of just giving up. “I am so fucking tired of you switching on me all the time! Can't you just make a decision and stick with it? Just once?”

She was completely justified in her anger, but I just couldn't accept that she basically wanted to throw her entire life away just to be with me, and that was why I continued to push her. I wasn't expecting her to call me out on it, though. “You knew what you were getting yourself into when we started this thing,” I said in a lame attempt to defend myself. “You knew it wouldn't be easy.”

“Well, it would be a hell of a lot easier if you could make up your mind.”

It was quiet again, and Bella was, again, the one who broke it. “Edward, I'm not pretending as if we don't have millions of problems to overcome before we can be anything serious. I'm young, but I'm not naïve, and I need to know, once and for all, if you want to be with me, because if you keep changing your mind like this, I'm not gonna be able to continue. I don't think you understand how hard you're making this for me.”

I was just about to reply, but she wasn't done.

“I want to be with you. I've wanted that since those Thursday evenings we spent together just talking in your car about movies and books. With every conversation, my feelings for you grew, but each time you pulled away, a part of me broke. So far I've been able to glue myself together again, but if you give me any more crap, no amount of sweet talk will pull me back to you.”

Hearing her put her feelings into words so eloquently reminded me of the time when things were easier, and I was simply impressed by the intelligence of my daughter's best friend.

“I have spring break in two weeks. I've been invited by a few friends to go to Cancun with them. If you can make a decision before then and tell me what you want, I will either be going with them, or I'm coming home. I'm leaving it up to you, but until you know for sure, I don't think we should talk.”

My insides were hurting at the mere thought of giving her up, but I knew she was right. I had issues to work through, and I had to stop stringing her along the way I did. She didn't deserve that, and so I was going to do exactly what she was asking.

“I am so sorry, Bella, for everything I've put you through,” I told her, and really meant it.

“Don't apologize,” she replied with a thick voice. “Just think about it, and then tell me what you want, because I can't keep playing this game with you. It hurts too much.”

~***~

Just like we said, Bella and I stopped talking until I figured myself out, but it killed me every day to not hear her sweet voice in my ear. That in itself should have been enough indication that I could barely function without her, but I was all too aware that I couldn't be selfish in my decision, and therefore, I decided to see what people in my proximity would feel about me dating a younger woman.

I was out at a sports bar with one of my longtime friends, Felix, taking a beer and watching a baseball game when I broached the subject. "How long did you wait after your divorce to start dating again?" I started carefully, hoping to ease into it.

Felix tore his eyes from the TV behind the bar and turned to me. “Uuh, I don't know, maybe a month, but that was mostly for Jane's sake. Why?”

I took a swig of my beer and shrugged noncommittally as if I was just making conversation. “My divorce was finalized two months ago, and I was wondering if it's too early to start dating again.”

Felix frowned. “Too early according to who? To Mary?”

I shrugged again.

Felix sighed. “It's never easy to watch your spouse move on without you. No matter how long you wait, it will always be too early for Mary, and for Alice as well, but only you can make the decision.” He patted me on the shoulder and brought his own bottle of beer to his mouth without taking his eyes off me. “How is the single life treating you by the way? Because honestly, you look a bit worn out.”

I chuckled humorlessly. I was beyond worn out and mentally stressed to the brim. I was constantly on edge thinking about Bella, wanting to be with her, but also worrying about the consequences if we ever became official and came out with our relationship.

I needed to know what the reactions would be, so I glanced at Felix, trying to gauge his mood and predict what he would say.

“Well, I am a bit tired because I've been seeing a new woman for awhile.” There was no reaction whatsoever from Felix as I revealed this. “That doesn't surprise you?”

He shook his head. “Not really. I understood it was something like that when you asked about dating. You forget I know you better than you know yourself, Edward,” he replied with a teasing smile, and I laughed in response.

“Yeah? Well, maybe you can tell me what to do then, because everything has become a very complicated mess.”

“How so?”

“She has started to want more than what we have.”

“And?”

I groaned in frustration as I knew that I had to come clean about my dirty secret now or I would forever remain silent. “And while I wouldn't oppose it personally, no one would understand our relationship.”

Felix frowned, obviously confused. “I am not following you. Why would no one understand?”

I cleared my throat and took another drink of my beer to gain some courage. “She's...uuh...she's a bit younger that what might be socially acceptable.”

“How much younger?”

I couldn't answer. I just couldn't. I was all too aware of the hint of disgust in Felix's tone. He knew I wasn't talking about a five to ten year age difference. He just knew.

“Edward, _how_ much younger?” he pushed, and I couldn't look at him as I answered.

“She'll turn twenty-one in six months,” I mumbled out, but he heard me.

“Damn...” he whispered out, finally grasping the enormity of my secret. “Are you fucking insane? Have you utterly lost your mind?”

I flinched at his words, but I just had to try and defend myself somehow. “I know it's a huge age difference, I've been aware of it from the beginning.”

“You don't say? You're practically robbing the cradle. How the hell did you two meet? She's not even legal to drink yet. You were married longer than she's been alive!”

I closed my eyes and massaged my temples as I could feel a headache coming on. “Felix, please, I know all of this, but when the attraction is there, what are you supposed to do?”

He threw his hands out exasperatedly, almost tipping his beer bottle over. “Nothing! You don't do anything. Seriously, Edward, how far have you gone with this girl? Because that's what she is, a girl. I mean, isn't she the same age as Alice?”

I flinched again when he mentioned Alice. If he was already freaking out, how would he react when he realized it was Bella I was talking about. Felix knew who Bella was. He had met her himself on several occasions when she was hanging with Alice and he came over.

He misinterpreted my flinch though, and the fire in him died as he realized how deep in this I was. “You've already fucked her, haven't you?”

I didn't need to answer.

He propped his elbows up on the bar and supported his chin on his hands. “Please tell me she wasn't a virgin at least. I beg you to tell me that you haven't ruined this girl.”

I was just about to tell him that I hadn't taken her virginity when I suddenly realized that I didn't know. That first time on my desk had been so heated and rushed, I couldn't recall if Bella showed any discomfort. It made me nervous that I didn't know because what if that was the reason Bella felt the way she did. If I was her first, was her feelings real or just a reaction to what her body was telling her.

I thought about that day in my apartment and how she had teased me. The way she sucked me spoke of her experience in that area at least, because there was no way that was the first time she gave oral. She was way too confident.

I had to talk to her about it all, but for now, I gave my friend a little white lie. “No, she wasn't a virgin.”

“Well, there's that at least.”

It was silent for a minute and my thoughts once again went back to the meetings Bella and I had in my office. I thought about our first kiss and couldn't stop myself from chuckling when I remembered what she wore that day.

Felix looked at me as if I was crazy. “Would you believe me if I told you she was the one who seduced me?” I said, and when he shook his head, my chuckle became a laugh instead. This was what I meant that no one would understand the relationship Bella and I had. No one could understand the dynamic, and that the shy twenty-year-old Bella could possibly become the sexy, confident young woman she was with me. They wouldn't understand that I wasn't the predator in this story.

I knew we wouldn't reach an understanding, so I decided to deflect the seriousness of the situation and bring some humor into it. I nudged him lightly with my elbow. “C'mon, as if you've never fantasized about being with a twenty-something. It's like, every man's dream, right?” I said with a light tone, even though I hated how I kind of trivialized what I had with Bella by saying this.

“Yeah, well, the difference is my fantasies stay in my head. I don't act them.”

“Mmhm.” I refused to believe that if he was presented with the opportunity he would actually say no. No man in his right mind would, and I doubted Felix was as righteous as he wanted to appear. “Tell me then...” I scanned around the bar until I spotted one of the young waitress's. She was easily the youngest and I suspected she wasn't many months older than Alice and Bella. She was also definitely Felix's type; petite, cute face, her blonde hair cut very short. “Let's say the waitress over there,” I nodded in her direction and Felix looked over at her. “If she came over here and told you that, after her shift, she would like to go home with you, would you actually tell her no?” I smiled, because I had him there. His eyes told me everything because as they glazed over, I knew he was imagining it.

He exhaled and admitted defeat. “Okay, yeah, you're right, I wouldn't say no, but I wouldn't exactly pursue a relationship with someone that young either.”

“Not even if everything just feels right when you're together?”

“You're talking as if you're in love with this girl or something," he threw at me and smiled at the preposterousness of the possibility. When I didn't deny it, his eyes widened. "Are you?"

“I told you it was complicated.”

He ran a hand through his shortly cropped hair. “Seriously, Edward, I have no advice whatsoever to give you on this. It's fucked up, and as you said, no one will understand a relationship between you and this girl. They will all believe you're either forcing her into it or that she's some gold-digging wretch and you're her sugar daddy.”

I sighed deeply as I already knew this, but it didn't make it easier to hear it from someone else. “Does it really matter, though?” I asked. “If those I care about know the truth, shouldn't that be enough?”

Felix scoffed. “Do you really believe Alice will be okay with it no matter what the truth is? That her dad is dating and therefore sleeping with someone her own age? She will think it's creepy as hell. And if for some miraculous reason, you and this girl have a successful relationship, what then? Will you marry her? Start a family all over again? Have you thought any of this through?”

“More times than I can count," I replied tiredly. "I'm too old to start a family again, and marriage is the farthest thing from my mind right now. I know I'm depriving her of these things if we pursue a real relationship, and I've tried to push her away numerous times in order for her to realize that I shouldn't be what she wants, but she hangs on. For some reason, she wants me."

“Can't see why.” Felix chuckled at his own joke, and I rolled my eyes at him.

“You're not exactly a catch yourself.”

“Hey, I'm a great catch, and you know it,” he continued, so I just shook my head in response, and then sighed. I had just confessed my deepest, darkest and dirtiest secret to Felix, and while I felt a bit better to have confided in my friend, I wasn't any closer to an answer.

“Seriously, man, what the hell should I do?”

He was instantly serious again and clapped me on the back. “To me, it sounds like you need to straighten some things out with the girl first before you do anything else. You need to know what her expectations are before you announce anything to the world.”

I nodded. “Yeah, you have a point.” I tilted my head back and emptied the last of my beer in one go.

~***~

I sat down on my couch with my phone in hand and brought up Bella's number in my contacts but hesitated as my thumb hovered over the green phone below her name.

She said she didn't want to talk before I'd made a decision, and so if I called her, she would assume I could give her an answer. I knew what  _I_ wanted, but the problem now was that I didn't know what  _she_ wanted.

There was no way around it. I had to have this conversation with her before we could even consider moving forward, and with that thought in my mind, I touched the key and brought the phone up to my ear.

Almost all the signals beeped, and for a second I thought I would have to call again later, but then a breathless Bella answered.

“Edward?”

“Bella? Are you okay? Why are you breathing so hard?”

“Oh, sorry! I'm at the gym, and I was doing sprints on the treadmill,” she explained and then there was the sound of her gulping down water.

I couldn't stop myself from imagining Bella sweaty and flushed from exertion and my mind went into what other things that would cause her to pant like she was now, and I had to hold in a groan.

“If you're too busy to talk right now, maybe you could call me later tonight?” I told her, my head still in the gutter and my jeans were becoming increasingly tighter by the second.

“What did you want to talk about?” she asked carefully, and my semi immediately softened as I heard in her voice how unsure she was. I could only imagine how difficult it must have been to not know what answer I would give her.

“Us. It's long overdue, don't you think?”

“Yeah,” she replied softly, and then cleared her throat. “I will call you when I'm back in my room. I was about done here anyway, so I'm just gonna do my stretches.”

This time, I couldn't hold in my groan. “Are you deliberately trying to kill me?” I asked jokingly, and Bella immediately caught on to where my mind was.

“Yes,” she said coyly. “I have to keep you wanting so you won't forget me.” She giggled lightly, and the sound warmed me up.

“As if that would even be possible.”

“I'll call you soon.”

We hung up and I leaned back and covered my face with my hands in pure frustration. If she told me that children were a must in her future, I wasn't sure that I would be able to walk away from her.

I went to the cabinet in the bookshelf where I stored my liquor and poured myself a generous amount of Talisker. I'd been drinking more since Bella gave her ultimatum and if we couldn't stay together, I was afraid I would become a true alcoholic.

I was pacing the length of the room as I waited for her call, taking too large gulps of my whiskey in the process. I was already starting to feel the effects of the alcohol, but when my glass was empty, I went to refill it anyway.

I wanted so many things with the coming conversation, all at once, and while I knew what my selfish side wanted, and had always wanted without a question, I had the responsibility on my shoulders to be the mature one. I had to be the one to think everything through until there was nothing left to analyze because if we went forward and then everything went to hell, I'd be the one drawing the shorter straw.

Finally, my phone started to ring, and I practically dived for it on the table, but instead of answering while my heart was thundering in my throat, I took a deep calming breath before sliding the green phone to the right on the screen.

“Bella?”

“Hi,” she replied quietly, and I sighed in relief and trepidation.

“Where are you?” I asked to stall for just a few more seconds.

“In my room.”

“Are you alone?”

“Yes...Ashley's spending the weekend with Brian.”

“Ashley's your roommate, right?" There was a moment where I could only hear her breathing, and I knew she wasn't going to answer any more of my irrelevant questions. I exhaled harshly and just jumped into it. "Sorry, I'm just nervous," I told her to explain my stalling.

“Why?”

“Because there are a few things we need to clear up before I can give you an answer.”

“So, basically, you haven't come to a decision,” she stated. “I told you I didn't want to talk to you until you knew what you wanted,” she continued sadly.

“I _do_ know what I want,” I hurriedly told her, afraid she would hang up the phone. “That's not the problem.”

“Then what is it?”

“I don't know what _you_ want.”

Another moment of silence.

“Of course you do,” she finally replied. “I want you and I want to be with you completely. I've always been honest about that.” Her tone was defensive and she probably thought I was trying to pass the blame for the state of our relationship onto her.

“I didn't mean what you want right now. I don't know what you want in the future. After college; what you're aspirations are; what kind of life you want to live.”

“What does that have to do with us?”

“It has everything to do with us." I knew she hated when I pointed out our age difference, but it was a key point in this conversation, and something she simply had to accept. She could not have the same expectations of our relationship like she would with a guy her own age who had his whole life ahead of him, which they could plan together. That was simply not feasible with us. "Bella," I started carefully. "Are you aware of what you would give up by being with me?"

“Like what exactly?” I wished I could see her face, that she was standing in front of me and we had this conversation in person. All I could hear through the phone was the hint of challenge in her tone.

“Like adventures, wild parties, spontaneous backpacking trips through Europe, summer flirts with guys you won't think about ever again, having a family of your own. Have you thought any of this through?” I asked desperately, because it was out now. If she said that she wanted all of this, there would no more 'us.'

“Are you serious, right now?” she asked, and I could tell that she was questioning my sanity for some reason.

“Yes.”

I heard her say a quiet 'oh my god' and I guessed she said it to herself in response to whatever was going through her head.

“I understand now that you really see me as a naïve little girl whose life you think you're about to ruin."

I shook my head. “I was—”

“Oh just shut up, Edward!” she interrupted me, and I closed my mouth and did as she told me. I was a bit amused that I was taking orders from a girl her age, but when it came to Bella, there were only a few things I would never do if she asked.

“First, there are obviously a few things you need to know about me that have somehow flown over your head, so let me explain it to you.” I held my breath. This was it. “Adventures for me does not include bungy-jumping off a bridge or rock climbing in Asia. For me, a simple surprise is an adventure, doing things out of your ordinary everyday life.

I like parties just as much as the next person, but I don't require a keg and to get shit-faced every weekend.

I hate backpacking and camping and anything that means you have to live in a bag, so to speak. Do I want to go out and travel once in a while? Yes, but last time I checked, you could be as old as you want to do that. I'm not even going to talk about the flirts you assume I want to have, and lastly I don't even want children.”

Everything she said was important, but the last statement was what stuck with me. “You don't?” I asked her stupidly.

“No! I've never wanted them. There is absolutely nothing in me that yearns to have them.”

“But if you got pregnant by accident, wouldn't you want that child?” I didn't know why I pressed the issue. I guess I couldn't wrap my head around what she was saying. I thought pretty much all women wanted to have children eventually.

She snorted humorlessly. “Yeah, that's not gonna happen.”

“Bella, those things can't be controlled to a hundred percent. Just because you don't want children doesn't mean that accidents don't happen.” As I said this, the realization that Bella and I had never used condoms when we had sex came to me. It was reckless of me to just assume she was on the pill, but if she wasn't, I was sure she would have insisted on other contraceptives since she was so sure of not wanting children.

“I'm not denying that all forms of birth control aren't completely safe. I'm not stupid, but thanks for believing that, by the way.”

“Bella, please, I—” I couldn't believe that I had put my foot in my mouth again.

“Just relax. I'm messing with you. I know you don't think I'm stupid. What I meant to say before is that an accidental pregnancy won't happen to me because I can't get pregnant."

I frowned in confusion. “And how is that?”

She sighed. “When I was fourteen, I was diagnosed with Endometriosis, and when I was eighteen I got a subtotal hysterectomy through keyhole surgery. It's literally impossible for me to get pregnant.”

“Oh,” I replied as I couldn't get anything more intelligent out at that moment.

“Does that settle all your fears or do you have any more reasons as to why I shouldn't want to be with you?” she asked sarcastically, and I just had to chuckle.

“Except for the obvious, you mean? No, I don't.”

It went silent for the third time, and I knew she was waiting. She wanted to know my answer now.

I cleared my throat. “I'm not going to deny that I'm still terrified, because I am. You bring out feelings in me I didn't know I could feel at my age.”

“When are you going to realize that you are not that old,” Bella inquired. “You're only forty-five, not seventy-five!”

I laughed softly. “You're right, and if you insist that it doesn't bother you, I won't let it bother me either. I've already told you how I feel about you, and that was never a lie. I'm in love with you and I want to be with you, so if you feel that's what you want, I'm with you completely.”

“Really?” she asked, her insecurity apparent in her voice. “Do you really mean that? Please, I'm begging you to not tell me this if you will change your mind next week.”

It hurt so much that I was the reason her insecurities ran so deep, and I promised that from that moment, I would do everything in my power to build her up again to become that confident, strong, young woman I knew she could be. “I'm dead serious. I'm yours.”

I could hear her sobbing, and I wanted nothing more than to wrap her in my arms and kiss away her tears.

“Why the fuck do you have to be so far away?” she suddenly exclaimed. “I need you here with me! I need _you_ so fucking much right now!”

Her need was tangible through the phone, and I felt the exact same way. I mirrored her every feeling and it tore at me that she was hundreds of miles away.

I knew in that instant that both of us needed to get away. We needed to be together someplace where we didn't have to hide, and my apartment didn't suffice. We would still be in a city where we couldn't be completely free, and I wanted to be able to take her out to dinner without fearing we'd run into someone we knew.

Her spring break was close; only five days away until her classes ended on Friday, and it was the perfect opportunity.

“Baby,” I said to gain her attention, and I liked how the endearment came out so naturally. “I think you should tell your parents that you're flying to Cancun over spring break.”

She inhaled sharply, and I instantly knew that she was jumping to conclusions, believing that I was already backing out of my promise.

I hurried to correct her assumptions. "I don't want us to spend your spring break holed up in my apartment. I want to be with you somewhere we can go out on a walk together, somewhere I could kiss you in public without worrying about onlookers. I will close the carpentry for the entire break, and we could fly somewhere warm like California, or Florida, or Las Vegas. Just the two of us. You and me, for the entire spring break. What do you say?"

“I'd say, spring break can't come fast enough!”

~***~

I looked up from my phone briefly and looked over at the people milling out from the arrivals entrance, but there was no Bella this time either. The flight board said her flight had been delayed, but the time had not been updated since that announcement, so she should have landed by now.

It was obvious that I was nervous and a whole lot of excited to see her again because I continuously rubbed my neck, scratched my chin, and my knee bounced fast with no indication that the movement would stop soon.

My pulse was high, my mouth felt dry, and I was afraid that an officer might come up to me and inquire if I carried drugs or something worse on me.

I checked my phone again, but there were no messages. If she had landed, she surely would have messaged me by now.

Then, I just knew that she was there. I could actually feel her presence, and when I looked up, I spotted her just coming around the corner with her bag in tow. She had put up her hair very messily, and she was dressed in shorts, causing her gorgeous legs to be on display. Even after spending hours on a plane, she still made me speechless.

I rose from my seat, and with the first step I took, her head turned to me and our eyes locked. The smile that stretched across her face was radiant and she instantly started to walk fast in my direction. I matched her pace and met her in the middle where she placed her hands on either side of my neck and pulled me down for a heart-stopping kiss.

Right there; in the middle of the busy arrivals area at Miami International Airport, and the best part was that we didn't care. Nobody knew us here, and we could relax completely.

I deepened the kiss just because I wanted to and could do it, but when she moaned softly against my mouth, I knew we had to stop before we got too carried away in our emotions of finally being together again.

Two and a half months had passed, and the wait had been agonizing and stressful, but standing with my arms around her made all the pain go away.

We parted but I kept my arm around her waist because I wanted to. I was going to keep her close to me for the entire week, and unless she told me to back off, I would make sure that I was always touching her in some way.

Her delicate hand stroked my cheek, and she smiled wide again, showing off all of her teeth. "I see the Miami sun has already gotten to you," she said, and the sound of her voice, clear and not obscured by the speaker on a phone did things to me, and I wanted to do all sorts of things that were more than inappropriate at an airport.

“Yeah,” I said and chuckled. “There's not a whole lot of sun at home right now, and my guess is that New York is the same.”

She rolled her eyes. “Are you kidding me? I was freezing my ass off when I boarded over there, and I actually changed in the toilet of the plane because I knew it'd be hot as fuck here.” She glanced me over, taking in my casual clothing of a short-sleeved cotton shirt and linen pants, and then smirked. “I wasn't wrong about how hot it'd be here,” she said, and I laughed at her statement.

She bent down to grab the handle of her bag, which had been discarded in the floor with our reunion. “Anyway, you'll have to help me remember sunscreen or I will literally burn to death during this week.”

“Don't worry about that. I'll take any chance I get to rub any lotion on your body. Just say the word,” I replied and winked.

“I'll hold you to that.”

We started walking outside and I led her toward the lot where I had parked the rental I'd fixed for us. I was excited to show her the hotel room I'd checked us into at The Setai right by Miami Beach. It was expensive as hell, but I rarely went on vacation, and the carpentry was rather lucrative lately. I felt that spending a week at a luxury hotel with the woman I was in love with and being able to show my affection for her openly was absolutely worth the money.

We tried to keep up a light conversation during the ride to the hotel and cover everything we hadn't already told each other over the phone. I asked her about college as we hadn't focused our phone calls on her education much, but then she asked me how I was handling everything after my divorce, as well as how Alice was coping, and the lightness disappeared instantly. Apparently, they weren't talking much, only occasional messages on Facebook.

“It can take days before she answers my texts, and I mostly get one-word replies,” Bella confessed. “We have been drifting apart for some time now, but I thought she would at least want to talk to me when your divorce was final. Had you not told me, I wouldn't have known when you signed the papers. I had to call her and lie, and say that I heard it from my mom who heard it from Mary.”

I nodded in understanding. It was obvious that her derailing friendship with my daughter pained her, but I couldn't really offer any good words of comfort. “Alice isn't taking the divorce very well. She tried to be strong at first, and she calmed down a whole lot with her behavior, but she's not motivated to do anything anymore. As far as I know, she still hasn't applied for any schools, and it worries me.”

Bella placed her hand on my forearm. “I'm sorry. I wish I could help, but she never really listened to me. It was always she who held the reins, and I mostly tagged along.”

I released the steering wheel with my left hand and intertwined my fingers with the hand she'd had on my arm. “Don't apologize, baby,” I told her, once again trying out the term of endearment, and her answering smile told me she liked it. “Alice has always been spoiled, and quite hard-headed, but I didn't want to see it and admit the truth to myself until very recently. I guess I just wish you'd rubbed off on her a bit more while you were so close. It sure would have made my life so much easier.”

“What about her boyfriend?” she suggested. “What's his name; Jason? No, wait, Jasper, right?” I couldn't help the smile when she didn't recall his name. “What if you talk with him and tell him that you're worried about her education? Maybe he could convince her?”

I chuckled humorlessly. “I don't think so. I've only met the guy a handful of times, and he has barely spoken a word to me. I don't think he likes me.”

It was Bella's turn to laugh. “Give me one example of a single guy who  _like_ s their girlfriends' fathers'."

I glanced over at her. “ _I_ have nothing against Charlie,” I told her, but it only caused her to laugh harder.

“Oh, _please_! You barely tolerated him when he was your neighbor, and I understand why. There are times when _I_ don't like him that much, but he's my father, so I'm kind of obligated to love him no matter what.”

I had to agree with her. “Okay, maybe that's true. Charlie isn't the easiest person to deal with, but, I mean, I've always seen myself as a pretty cool Dad, and I don't under—” I stopped talking when I saw Bella shake her head in the corner of my eye. “What?” I asked.

She held up one finger with the hand I wasn't holding in mine. “First rule is that if the dad thinks of himself as cool, he is the absolute opposite in the daughter's eyes.”

I frowned. “Seriously?”

“Definitely,” she said and nodded. “The main topic between two young people talking is how embarrassing their parents are, or how unfair, or how they don't understand. Believe me, if Jasper doesn't like you, it's because of what Alice has told him about you, and he probably feels uncomfortable around you.”

“Huh...”

It was very interesting and enlightening to hear Bella explaining the mind of young adults. Lord knows I needed to be educated in how my daughter was thinking, and Bella was my best bet at learning, but when I spotted the hotel, and I knew we were getting closer to starting our week together, I knew I definitely didn't want to spend it by talking about the problems I had at home. This week was supposed to be about the two of us truly getting to know each other without limitations, and when I looked at her again, my eyes were drawn toward her bare legs, and I knew where I wanted to start.

“Baby,” I said, and once again, her smile became radiant in response to the nickname. I used the hand which was still clasped with hers and pointed toward the hotel. “That's where we'll stay.”

“Whoa!” she exclaimed and leaned closer to the windshield to get a better look. “That's so cool. I've never stayed at a luxury hotel before.”

“Just wait until you see the suit...and more specifically the _bed_. It's like sleeping on a cloud.”

She tore her eyes away from the building to look at me. “Well, I sure hope you plan on us doing a whole lot more in that bed than  _sleeping_ .”

I smirked. “Most definitely.”

“Good.”

A shiver ran through my body as I thought about said plans. “Now I really can't wait until you see the suit,” I said, and my voice came out very husky. I was so relieved that I was turning into the parking lot at that moment.

She looked at me from underneath her lashes. “By all means, then, Mr. Masen. Lead the way.”

I very nearly forgot her bag in the trunk of the car.

**A/N:** So they're going to explore an official relationship now! I know this story doesn't involve a whole lot of sexy times, but there is so much that needs to be covered around the sexual part of their relationship. We already know they have awesome sex, and I assure you, I will write more of that, too, but there's too much that need to be sorted out before I can focus on that.

Now, I need to warn you, as I said in the previous chapter, this is not the highest on my priority list and writing on the story goes very slowly, and I hope this doesn't make you too sad. I can promise you, though, that I am not a person who abandons my stories, so while it might take several weeks or a couple of months between chapters on this story, I will never leave you hanging! Scout's honor!

I haven't started writing on chapter 4 as I posted this chapter, so I can't tell you when that will be up, but I hope you'll hang on anyway :)

Okay, love you all a bunch, and I can't wait to hear what you think of Edward finally pulling his head out of his ass and keeping his word to Bella.

Lots of Love and Hugs and Kisses!

~MarieCarro

 


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N:** It's been awhile … yeah. I'm not gonna deny that, but this story is as it is. I have a really hard time writing on it, and I think mostly it's because I have to try and see everything from a forty-four year old man's perspective while I myself am I twenty-four year old woman.

It's not the easiest. I have to tell you that. But I do my best, especially since this piece is without a beta, and there are other stories that I prioritize above this one. I apologize to those of you who really and truly love this story and wish me to update more often.

As it is now, I am updating as often as I am capable.

**TAKE FOUR**

I was fully content as I lay on my back in the bed of the hotel suite, Bella practically draped over me and my hand running lightly up and down her spine.

Her skin was so soft and undamaged and I fleetingly wondered what she thought of my callused carpenter hands touching her silky smooth skin. Did she like it, or did it feel uncomfortable?

Her slow, deep breathing reassured me she wasn't too opposed.

It was the second day of Bella's Spring Break, and so far we hadn't even left the suite, hell, we'd barely left the general bed area. While I wasn't as energetic as a twenty-year-old, I was still impressed with myself and how well I'd been able to keep up with my incredibly horny girlfriend.

I hadn't had that much sex in one day since my honeymoon, and I had definitely not been as creative and adventurous as Bella was when it came to positions. My girl just continued to surprise me at every turn.

At least, now, I was almost 100% certain that Bella had not been a virgin before me. There was just no way. I had yet to ask her, though, and there was no time like the present.

“Bella?”

“Hmm?” she hummed. It sounded like she was very close to sleep.

“I didn't take your virginity, right?”

“What?” She turned her head and supported her chin on my chest to look at me. She was frowning, but her eyes were amused.

“That time on my desk, that wasn't your first time, right?” That she didn't answer me right away had me just a tiny bit worried.

“Why are you asking?” A smile stretched across her face and it was equally amused as her eyes.

I opened my mouth to answer her with some white lie version, but I stopped myself before I could do so. I had to start being completely truthful with her if we would ever work out. “You know my friend, Felix?”

She raised her brow in confusion. “I think so, yeah. What about him?”

“I kind of told him about us,” I admitted and her eyes widened.

“You did?”

“I didn't tell him your name,” I hurried to reassure her. “But he knows that I am in love with a woman much younger than myself and that I am now in a relationship with her.”

She smiled at my words but continued to push as well. “And what did he say to that? How did he react?”

“With shock and disgust, mostly,” I told her honestly. “But I guess that was expected.” I started to stroke her back again. “He didn't like that you were the same age as Alice, and he said that people will either see me as a creep or you as a gold-digger who only wants a sugar-daddy.”

She laughed at that and then grabbed my hand to entwine our fingers. “Well, he's not completely wrong, I guess. You are spoiling me quite a lot this week, and I can only offer my body as repayment, and you are a bit of a pervert, to be frank,” she said, but her tone was light and humorous.

“You're the one who brings that side out of me out in the open, baby. I wasn't the one who suggested—”

“True, but it was fun, wasn't it?” she asked, interrupting me in the process.

I chuckled. “You'll never hear me complain.”

She stretched her neck and gave me a sweet kiss that had me wanting more, but before I could pull her tighter against me and demand it, she leaned away. “What does all of this have to do with my virginity, though?” she asked, and I realized we'd gotten off track.

“Right. Well, another thing Felix freaked about was whether I'd taken your virginity or not. I told him no because I doubt you were. You've demonstrated too much experience, but at the same time, I don't know for certain either.”

I didn't mention that it had been a fear of mine that her feelings could possibly have stemmed from our first time together because I wouldn't question her feelings for me ever again unless she gave me a really good reason to do so.

“In which way did he freak out?” Bella asked and continued to dodge my true question.

“He said, and I quote, 'Please tell me she wasn't a virgin at least. I beg you to tell me that you haven't ruined this girl.'”

“Seriously? In what way could you possibly have ruined me?”

I groaned. “Bella, please, put me out of my misery and just tell me.”

She rolled her eyes and rolled off me to lay on her back as well. “Relax. I wasn't a virgin. My first time came  _years_ before you.”

“Really?” I was intrigued now. “How old were you?”

“Way too young.” She turned her head to look at me, and I rolled over on my side so that I could look at her more properly. “I was fourteen, and I had this boyfriend who was in high school. I was nowhere near ready for it, but he pressured me, and said that I couldn't start my first year at high school and still be a virgin.”

I frowned at that, instantly disliking the boy who had put her through such a thing. “And you listened to him?”

“As I said, I was fourteen, and I was a huge pushover. Of course I listened to him. He was in high school, and for a girl like I was back then, that was a big deal. It didn't exactly help that Alice claimed she had already done it and that it wasn't so bad.”

I almost swallowed my tongue when she said that, and it felt as if my eyes would fall out of their sockets. “What now? A-Alice? My Alice?”

Bella burst out laughing. "Wow, your face right now … priceless." She reached up to put her hand on my neck and started playing with the hair at the nape of it. "Take it easy there, Daddy. Don't have a heart attack. She lied to me because when I told her what Peter wanted, she didn't want to feel  _un-cool_ because she had barely kissed a guy up until that point. Your little girl didn't go all the way until much later.”

I exhaled with relief, and I was also glad that she didn't give me an exact age. I would not have been able to handle that. Thoughts of my daughter and sex were just not something I ever wanted to have. “Thank god for that.” I grabbed the hand she had on my neck and brought it to my mouth so that I could kiss her palm. “And by the way, don't ever call me 'Daddy' again. That felt wrong.”

She smiled widely. “Do you want me to call you something else?”

I traced my fingers down her body and in between her legs, which caused her to moan and breathe out my name. “I am happy with just my name falling from your lips, baby.”

She giggled adorably before pushing on my shoulder to get me down on my back, straddling me in the same movement.

“You do know that my recovery time isn’t like the average college guy,” I reminded her.

She started to kiss down my chest. “Oh, I have to say that I am most impressed with your recovery time, Mr. Masen, so you don’t have to worry about that.”

I closed my eyes and relaxed into my pillows. Until this dream ended, I was going to enjoy every second of it.

~***~

“What would you like to drink?” I asked Bella while the both of us perused over the menu at the restaurant we'd chosen to eat dinner at.

“I'm just gonna go with a coke,” she replied, and I looked up at her since her tone told me something differently.

“You don't want a glass of wine or a beer?”

She sighed and smiled. “Oh I would love that, but my ID doesn't allow me any alcohol.”

“Then let me order it for you. What do you want?”

She looked at me over the edge of her menu with a look I couldn't decipher. “Uhm, I'd like a glass of Cabernet, then.”

“Then I suggest we get a bottle,” I said and smiled at her before waving over the waiter, and I ordered our drinks. He glanced suspiciously at Bella for a second, but then shrugged and went to get our wine without asking for her ID.

Bella sighed and started to twist the end of her hair around her fingers in an annoyed fashion.

“You're eager to turn twenty-one, huh?”

“Totally," she agreed and nodded. "I will feel just a tiny bit more equal to you after that."

I leaned forward to take her hand in mine. “Bella, you are equal with me. I don't want you to ever think of our relationship as a war for power.”

“No, I know that. But still, it will be nice when I can order my own drink without feeling like a kid stealing her mom's makeup without permission.”

I chuckled at her analogy. “I guess that's understandable.”

The waiter came back with the bottle and two glasses and while I went through the motions of tasting the wine to make sure it was good enough, Bella sat silently and sipped on the water we'd been provided with as well.

It was obvious she wasn't very comfortable with how public we were despite being in a town thousands of miles away from home and not a soul knew us here.

“Are you ready to order?”

“Bella?”

She looked up and when she met my eyes, she instantly straightened her back. “I couldn't really see on the menu which dishes are vegetarian. Do you have anything besides a salad?”

The waiter looked completely caught off guard by the question, but I believed it had more to do with the confident tone in Bella's voice, which was the complete opposite of what her body language had been just a second before. I took a sip of my wine to hide my smile.

“Uh, I'll have to check with the chef,” the waiter said and was about to scramble away when I stopped him.

“Whatever you can fix for her, I'll have the same, thanks.”

He nodded and left.

Bella blinked at me in surprise. “Really? You're not gonna order the steak or burger?” she asked.

I smiled and shook my head. “No. I noticed when we ordered room-service how uncomfortable you were sitting with me when I ate meat. I want us to enjoy this night, so vegetarian it is.”

“You are so sweet. Like, seriously, I wasn't expecting you to do that for me.” She stood up slightly from her chair and leaned over the table to give me a kiss.

It absolutely thrilled me that we could do it, and I might have gotten a bit carried away because I heard some mumbling next to us, and when we parted and I glanced that way, I saw a woman in my age who gave me a disgusted look.

I knew that it was only a taste of what we would eventually have to face back home when we decided to come out clean, but it still annoyed me to see that woman stare at me like I was a predator, judging what Bella and I had by her own dirty mind's standards.

I chuckled humorlessly. “I sure do wish there could be some miraculous way for us to make people see and understand that what you and I have is real,” I mumbled, but Bella heard it.

“Yeah, wouldn't that have been nice, but since there isn't, I guess we'll just have to deal with everything coming our way together, right?”

“Agreed.”

We clinked our glasses together in a toast and a promise. We weren't going to let anybody else bring us down.

~***~

After that night at the restaurant, Bella and I started a little game that was basically about which one of us could shock people the most when they realized we weren't a Dad and his daughter walking around.

Both of us found it entertaining to mess with people, but Bella was pretty much the master, and I doubted I was ever going to reach her level. She just seemed to have a talent for it.

One day we were at a carnival, and a guy close to her age who was working in one of the shooting booths called out to us. “Hey there, sir! How about taking a shot and win a bear for your daughter?”

I was about to decline when Bella looked at me with large excited eyes. “Oh, Dad, please! Please win a bear for me!”

I had laughed at her and gone with her willingly enough when she dragged me up to the booth.

“How many does he have to hit to win me that bear?” she'd asked the guy in a slightly flirty voice, and he'd been powerless against her charm and smile.

“Uuh ... t-three,” he replied in a shaky voice.

“Awesome,” she said and handed me the shotgun. When her fingers grazed my knuckles, she glanced up at me and winked, which of course had me laughing again. “If you win me that bear, Dad, I'll do _anything_ you want.”

I wasn't a pro-shooter or anything close to that, but I had been a frequent carnival visitor when I was a kid, and I knew how to shoot at a bunch of cans. It didn't take me many tries to hit three and the booth-guy gave the very exuberant Bella the plush light-brown bear she wanted so badly.

The best part was the look on the guy's face when Bella threw her arms around my neck and pulled me down to give me a kiss of gratitude, and it was not exactly a small peck on the lips either.

When she let me go, she met the poor guy's look, winked and sneaked in under my arm. “Thank you for the bear,  _Dad_ ,” she said and then we walked away.

“You're such a tease … poor guy never stood a chance,” I told her when we were out of ear-shot.

She shrugged non-apologetically. “Of course he never stood a chance when I had you next to me. And he's only got himself to blame. That should teach him to never presume anything ever again.”

“Yeah … either that or he will believe that we are a father and daughter who's got a very … _controversial_ relationship.”

She laughed and hit me lightly on the chest with her new bear.

“Why did you want that bear so much anyway?”

She looked at the stuffed animal and smiled. “Well, now I have something I can physically take with me back to school that will remind me of our time here.”

“It's going to be harder to be apart after this week, isn't it?” I asked rhetorically because I already knew the answer to that one.

She nodded. “Yeah, and school's going to be crazy, so I won't have any more time off before summer.”

I swallowed hard. "But that's only six or seven weeks, right? You don't have any summer classes or anything, do you?"

“No, I don't, but it won't be the same anyway.”

I frowned in confusion. “What do you mean?”

She sighed sadly. “We'll be back home. Back where both of us are knee-deep in secrets. We won't be able to be together like we are now.”

“That's true, but I'm sure we can get away to some other place for a week or two.”

“Without our families noticing that the both of us disappear at the same time? Believe me, if they're not suspecting us to have secret relationships on the side now, they definitely will then.”

I knew she was right, and I also knew what we could do about it. “So maybe we don't keep it a secret.”

She whipped her head toward me so fast I was afraid she'd get a kink in her neck. “What?”

“Maybe, this summer is the time for us to 'come out' so to speak,” I suggested.

Bella was silent for a moment as she thought about it. “I don't know. Do you think we're ready for that? Two weeks ago we didn't even call this a relationship. Isn't that a little fast?”

“If that's how you feel, I understand,” I told her. “But I don't think it is.” I led her over to a bench and we sat down. “I know it's my fault things have been going so slow between us. I'm not going to deny that I have been acting both hot and cold with you, and you know I've had reasons, no matter how stupid they've been.”

She giggled adorably, and I cupped her precious face in my hand. “When I first told you that I am in love with you, I was completely serious. If my own irrational fears didn't have the annoying habit of getting in the way, I would have told you this a long time ago.” I looked into her beautiful dark eyes and smiled. “Bella, I love you, and the thought of having to hide you away like some dirty secret makes me nauseous.” I leaned forward and gave her a kiss, and I could feel the wetness on her cheeks from her tears. I wiped them away with my thumbs and pulled her closer to me, but only close enough to still be appropriate in public. “You deserve so much more than that, and I don't want to lie about this anymore.”

Her breath was shaky as she inhaled deeply. “I love you, too,” she said. “I've just been so scared to tell you.”

“Why?”

She looked down and entwined our hands. “I guess I am still a bit insecure, and while the biggest part of me can feel that you're not planning on pulling away this time, there's still that whispering voice in my head that says I need to be careful.”

I nodded. “I can understand that, and I don't blame you. I'm hoping time will reassure you.”

“What about Alice, though?” she asked and looked back up at me. “She will hate me when she finds out that I am screwing her Dad.”

Her choice of words made me grin. “Well, I'm sure she will hate me as well, knowing that I'm  _screwing_ her best friend.”

“We haven't been best friends for a long time,” Bella disagreed. “It will hurt, losing her as a friend. There was a time when she knew me better than anyone, but that changed pretty quickly after graduation.”

“I noticed that. What happened exactly?”

She shrugged. “I guess we wanted different things in life and we just grew apart.” She leaned her head against my shoulder. “If I'm being honest, though, if someone asked me right now, in this moment, who I would choose between Alice and you, I would pick you without hesitating.”

I kissed the top of her head. “She will eventually move on and get over it,” I tried to reassure.

“Yeah, but she can hold one hell of a grudge, and I'm pretty sure I won't be able to show my face at home for some time after we tell everyone.”

I frowned. “Why not?”

“You know that rumor that went all over town about Alice's and my classmate, Jessica Stanley?”

“The one about her sleeping with every guy at your school?” I asked. I remembered when that rumor spread, and it spread fast. The poor girl got so many propositions by boys and men all over town after that because she was supposed to be an easy catch. “Didn't she change schools?”

“She moved out of town. She couldn't stand the catcalls and the stares any longer.”

“Understandable. What does this have to do with Alice holding a grudge and you going MIA at home, though?”

She laughed, but it was obvious it wasn't because she thought it was funny. “Who do you think started the rumor?”

It took a moment for me to connect the puzzle pieces and when I did, I leaned away and had Bella look me in the eye. “Are you serious? Alice did that? You're saying that my daughter ruined that girl's life?”

Bella nodded sadly. “Yeah, I'm afraid so. Alice has always had a bit of a mean streak. I never cared when we were kids because it wasn't worse than what other kids did to each other, but her motivation for lying about Jessica was because she saw Jessica kiss the guy she liked, and that was it.” She sighed and looked out over the park. “It made me very uncomfortable from the start when Alice told me what she'd done, and when Jessica moved out town, I stayed at home and cried for two days because I felt so guilty even though I didn't do anything.”

I scrubbed my face with one of my hands as I started to feel quite uncomfortable myself. Bella was telling me things about my daughter that I had no idea about, and I questioned myself as a parent. Did Mary know this about Alice? She couldn't because I was positive she would have told me then. The whole Jessica Stanley thing happened when Alice and Bella were Sophomores, and my marriage with Mary had been fine back then.

No, I was sure Mary didn't know, and I realized that we needed to do something about our daughter, and fast before her behavior got her into something she couldn't get out of.

“Just imagine what she'd say about me when we tell her the truth,” Bella continued, and I spotted a tear fall down her cheek. I put my arm around her shoulders and pulled her back against my side.

“Then we'll face it together. Just like we promised.”

~***~

“ _I met a traveler from an an antique land who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone stand in the desert … Near them, on the sand, half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown—_ ” 

“Give me a challenge. That's Ozymandias by Percy Bysshe Shelley. We studied every detail of that poem for a week in Senior year,” Bella said from where she lay on her towel and sunbathed.

Both of us had decided that a day on the beach sounded like something we both needed, and as we absorbed the sun's warmth, I read from a book of collected poems to see if she could name the poem and author.

She knew each one of them without hesitation, and it had made me smile. It was nice to sometimes go back to that one thing that first had brought us together, which was our love for the written word.

“If you know every detail of the poem, then tell me what it means?”

She cracked her eye open and glanced at me sideways before grinning. "It's about the irony that one of the greatest kings in history now only has a broken down statue to attest to his reign. The grandeur of his plans has been leveled out by the sand because, in the end, we're all in the mercy of time and nature no matter how great we lived," she said confidently.

“Sounds like you've figured out the answers to life itself,” I teased her.

“It's a gift and curse to have such a vast intellect as I do,” she replied, and I chuckled.

Suddenly, the sun was blocked by a young guy with long hair tied back in a bun. “Hey, man, sorry to bother you, but I just wanted to see if your daughter wanted to play some ball with me and a few of my friends,” he said and smiled widely at Bella even though he was supposedly talking to me.

Bella raised her brow at him. “No, thank you,” she told him politely without correcting his mistake of our relationship. Both of us had kind of given up on that point by now. There would always be people who mistook us for parent and child because of our age difference, and we'd accepted that, as long as we didn't care, they could believe what they wanted.

“Oh, C'mon! It would be fun," the guy insisted.

“Hey … _dude,_ she said no,” I warned him. I had never liked how pushy young guys were when it came to women. I wasn't going to deny that I had most likely been the same when I was their age, but it didn't mean that I was going to condone that sort of behavior now when I could say something about it.

“Take it easy there, Pops. I'm just offering her a good time,” he continued, and before I could stand up and physically remove him from my sight, Bella sat up and glared at him.

“Read the tone; not interested!”

“Okay, jeesh, take a chill pill. I was just asking.” The guy left us, and Bella rolled her eyes before she turned over onto her stomach and handed me her sunscreen.

“Could you put some on my back?”

I got on my knees and put some lotion in my hand to massage it into her skin, and as I did so, I leaned down to her ear. "I love you."

She smiled into her bent arm. “I love you, too.”

~***~

“I was wondering something,” Bella said softly the next morning as she traced light patterns on my chest with her index finger.

“What?”

“I don't want you to freak out or anything, but I just had a thought and wondered if you could ever see yourself getting married again?”

I tensed up slightly but did my best to calm down again. “Why are you asking?”

“Obviously, I'm not talking about the near future, but let's say in five or six years? Is that something you'd ever be willing to do?” she whispered out.

“Honestly?”

“Mhm...”

I inhaled sharply. “Right this moment, no, I can't see myself going through that again. My divorce from a twenty-four-years-long marriage was finalized just three months ago. I can't say I have much faith in that constitution right now.”

Bella nodded. “I can understand that.”

I looked down at her and stroke her hair. "Is that something you would really want someday?"

She shrugged. “I don't know. I've never seen it as a necessity, and I can't say that my parents have been any poster models for marriage, but I wouldn't exactly be against it either.” She shifted so that she could look at me. “The thought is still very romantic, and I guess I am a bit hopeless in that department.”

“Would you be sad if you and I never took that step?” I asked her carefully.

“Not at all,” she replied and smiled sweetly at me. “As long as I get to keep you and know you're mine, I don't care if a paper says that or not.”

In that moment, I had never been more certain that Bella and I had been created for each other. In that single moment, I couldn't have cared less that she was twenty-five years younger than I was because as I looked at her, nothing in my life had ever felt as right as she did.

I captured her mouth with mine and scooted down so that we were level with each other and I could deepen the kiss.

I trailed my hand down her body, reveling in the softness of her sun-kissed skin, and when my fingers reached her swollen center, I swallowed her moan. As always, she was already ready for more, and when I probed deeper with two digits, she threw her head back.

“Oh, fuck, that feels good.”

I started to suck lightly on her neck, as I'd found out that she really liked that, and when scraped my teeth over her pulse-point, a shudder went through her entire body, and I knew she was close.

I used my thumb to rub her clit as I continued to rhythmically thrust my fingers into her, and only a few moments later, she clenched hard and let out that amazing sound that she did when she came. It was a kind of whimper mixed with a moan that instantly made me solid, and she more than willingly allowed me to roll on top of her and push myself into her still-clenching center.

“I don't know how you do it,” she breathed out as she grabbed a hold of my upper arms to anchor her to something.

I could barely focus on her words as the sensations of her ebbing orgasm caressed me as I thrust deeply. "Do what?" I groaned out.

“Make me come so fast,” she replied and arched her back, which made her feel even tighter. “I can never do that by myself.”

“Yeah?”

“Uh-huh.”

She wound her legs around my waist like a vice and pulled on my neck so that she could kiss me, and as I sucked on her bottom lip, her lower muscles once again tightened up, and I couldn't stop my own orgasm even if I'd wanted to.

I rolled over onto my back and immediately pulled Bella close to my side. Both of us were breathing harshly and our bodies were slick with sweat, but neither of us wanted to move away from the other.

We didn't have a whole lot of time left to be together like this, and I was going to savor all of it.

~***~

“Baby, please, don't cry,” I said and wiped away the tears that were stubborn enough to fall down her cheeks anyway. “It's only seven weeks, and we'll talk every night on the phone if that's what you want.”

She sniffled and swallowed. “Yeah, but as I said, it won't be the same. This week with you was everything, and it physically hurts that I have to go back to New York without you.”

“I know. It hurts me, too. But at least, we'll go back, knowing that we love each other. No more uncertainties between us.”

A small laugh escaped her. “There's that at least.”

“And if you want to tell your classmates and college friends about me, I am fine with that,” I reassured her.

“Really?”

I nodded. “Nothing thrills me more than to be talked about as your boyfriend, and I wish I could go home and tell everyone of the amazing week I've had with the woman I love and that her name is Bella Swan, but I'm gonna wait, even though I really don't want to, until you can be right there next to me. The people at your campus will have to do for now.”

She smiled. “Yeah, I guess testing the waters is a good idea before we announce it to the world.”

“I believe so.”

“ _For passengers of Flight 791319 to Newark airport, New York. Please proceed to Gate H12.”_

The message repeated over the speakers, and Bella threw her arms around my neck. I held her equally as tight against me, and when we pulled apart, I gave her one last kiss that I never wanted to end.

“I'm gonna miss you so much,” she said against my mouth, and her sweet breath washed over my face. I breathed it in like a drug and had to forcibly pry my hands away from her body.

“Same here,” I told her and then took one agonizing step back and away from her. “I'll see you in seven weeks.”

She grabbed her bag and backed away from me, her eyes so sad it tore at me, and then she gave me a small wave before turning around and hurrying down the airport toward her gate.

“Ain't she a little young for you?” a woman in her thirties asked me accusingly as I gazed after Bella's retreating form. I turned toward the woman who was sitting on a bench nearby, and I simply smiled at her.

“Age is but a number,” I told her and started to make my way toward a different waiting area and my own flight.

~***~

I knew it was my job to start and lay down the foundation for everyone so that it wouldn't come as a complete shock when Bella and I came out with our relationship, and that was mainly what I did during those seven weeks of agonizing wait when I wasn't working or talking to Bella over the phone.

I started with those who were the easiest. Those of my friends who had no idea who Bella was, and when I told them that I'd started dating again, they were only happy for me. A few of them had the same reaction as Felix when I told them of the age difference, but most of them said that as long as it was a consenting relationship between two adults, who cared about age.

My most immature friends, however, had the reaction I should have anticipated. They wanted to know how willing she was to do whatever I asked in the bedroom, and how epic it was to have sex with a twenty-year-old. Some of them joked around and said I had to be careful so that I wouldn't break my hip or something like that.

I brushed them off and told them it was none of their business, which had them protesting loudly, but I didn't care. What Bella and I did when we were alone was only between us.

When there was only three remaining weeks until Bella would come back home, Felix approached me and said that he'd heard “through the grapevine” that I was telling people about my new, young girlfriend.

“So you decided to pursue it fully?” he asked as we ate lunch together at Frank's.

I chuckled. “I didn't really have a choice,” I admitted. “When I first told you about her, I was already in too deep to back away.”

“I saw that, and I can see you're even deeper into it now.”

I nodded. “We went away together for a week, and it helped a lot and made a whole lot of things so much clearer.”

“Such as?”

I looked at him but took a gulp from my drink before I answered him. “We both realized that we love each other.”

Felix rubbed his chin and scratched the stubble on his jaw. He was in need of a shave, but it wasn't my place to tell him that. “Seriously?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said without hesitating.

“Ed, are you sure? How can you love her? I mean, how long have you known her? Two, three months?”

I inhaled deeply. Here goes nothing. “Actually, I've known her for years.”

He frowned. “How is that possible? Do you make a habit of hanging out with teenage girls or something?”

“No, I can't say I do, but being around teenage girls have also been kind of inevitable as well,” I told him cryptically.

“How can it have been inevitable? I mean, you're not exactly—oh!” Felix interrupted himself and then his features smoothed out completely as he realized something. “No,” he groaned. “Don't say it, man. Please, please, don't.”

I looked at him as if I didn't know what he was talking about in and the look he gave me was so pleading but also resigned it was almost comical.

“It's one of her friends, isn't? Alice's?” he asked, and I silently took a bite of my food, which was enough confirmation for Felix. “Holy shit, this is messed up. It's more messed up than it was before. It's beyond messed up, like, I just can't—”

“It's Bella,” I told him, and he completely froze up, and remained that way for almost a minute.

“Bella? As in your neighbor Charlie Swan's daughter? That Bella? Alice's best friend?”

“Yes.”

He exhaled and puffed his cheeks. “Wow, man. Just wow. I am fucking speechless.”

“That must be a first,” I joked, but Felix stared at me seriously.

“How can either of you believe it will ever work? Because I sure as hell can't.”

“That's because you don't understand how Bella and I are together. When things started down that road, everything clicked, and no matter how hard I fought it, it was impossible to resist.” I thought back on how many times I had pulled away from Bella and how many insecurities I'd installed in her because of that. “You know I don't believe in things like fate, but Bella is the closest thing I've ever come to feeling like such a thing actually exists.”

Felix shook his head. "C'mon, man! Really? Are you gonna give me that crap? 'Cause in my head, that doesn't justify anything? It's still Bella you're talking about. Hell, I've met the girl myself!"

“I know you have, and what else do you want me to say? It is what it is, and it's too late to back away now.”

“Fuck that, it's never too late to back away," he continued to push. "You're ruining ever entire life, Ed!"

I frowned and clenched my jaw to keep from lashing out at my best friend. “How so?”

He blinked at me as if I was insane. “H-how so? You're actually asking me how you're ruining her life?”

“Yes, I'm asking you that because apparently you have more knowledge of her life than she does.”

“What?”

I looked at him silently for a moment. “She loves me, Felix. She has said it herself several times that she wants to be with me.”

He scoffed. “She's only twenty. She doesn't know what she wants yet.”

“So just because she's young, her feelings can be discarded? Is that what you're saying?”

“Well...” he said and scrambled for words. “...yeah.”

“Mary and I got married a month before I turned twenty,” I pointed out to him.

Felix opened his mouth to say something but stopped himself for a second before he tried to wave that fact away. “Things were done differently back then. You two were going to college together and—”

I shook my head. “Don't play that card, Felix. Just admit that it's not her age that is the problem.”

He threw his hands out, exasperated. "Okay, yeah, her age is not the problem. Yours is." He leaned forward on his elbows. "You're almost twenty-five years older than she is. You've lived your life. You've done the whole wife and baby and the suburban house shebang already, and you've said yourself that you're too old to start a new family. Do you really think it's fair to her that you're depriving her of all those things?"

I sighed. "Bella and I have talked about all of this. Believe me, Felix, I beat myself up like crazy at first, asking myself those questions over and over, convincing myself that she'd be better off without me. But then I asked her, and she said that she doesn't want all of that, so who am I to argue with her?"

“She says that now, but what about in five, six, or seven years?”

“We'll have that talk then, but no matter what all of this will result in, in the end, it's between me and Bella."

Felix hung with his head. “That's where you're wrong, Edward. It's between you, Bella … and Alice.”

“No," I disagreed. "Alice turns twenty-one in July, and I have realized that Mary and I have babied her too much, but she's an adult, and she needs to grow up as well. She should know that love isn't always planned."

“She will hate you. Both of you.”

I nodded. “Most likely, and it will be her choice if she wants to cut me out of her life completely. I will always respect that choice. Had it only been my feelings, I would've discarded them without a second thought for Alice, and you know that,” I told him. “But it's not just my feelings. It's Bella's too, and if I walk away from her now, I can guarantee you that she will walk around with deep scars in her heart for the rest of her life, and I can't do that to her. I love her too much.”

Both of us were silent for a long time, and then Felix stood up and grabbed his jacket. “Hell, I'm gonna need something stronger after this. Let's grab a beer at Murphy's, and possibly a shot of tequila.”

I wasn't slow to follow him out the door because I felt that a beer was just what I needed right then.

 **A/N:** I just want to tell all of you that in my mind, even though Bella has Endometriosis, the pain she can sometimes experience during sex is mild enough for her to not have a problem with spontaneous sex. Having said that, I don't have Endometriosis myself, and I do not know how it feels, so I'm not gonna claim myself to be an expert in the area.

If someone out there who reads this story happens to have this condition, and there is anything that you think is totally absurd, try to simply see this as a work of fiction that hasn't gone through any editing besides my own, and all mistakes are mine!

I hope I won't offend anyone by stuff that you feel are untrue because that is not my intention at all.

Thank you.

 


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